


Star Wars Episode VII: The Dark Reborn

by Tathrin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode VII, Expanded Universe, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Queer Character, Revan has no need for your pronouns, Ships will be tagged later to avoid spoilers!, Some of the characters tagged are analogous to the "new" characters actually in the story, Technically?, There are also lots of cameos I didn't bother to tag (see if you can spot them!), What-If, all Revans are valid here, also godsdamn this thing has a lot of chapters but i promise they're almost all short, also pronouns what pronouns?, bc if you're going to create an "updated" canon what's the point if it's not diverse and queer af?, i guess, kind of more its own thing though, lots of queer characters actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2021-04-11
Packaged: 2021-04-11 14:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 47,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21555778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tathrin/pseuds/Tathrin
Summary: On the brink of peace at last between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant, an old darkness returns from the Unknown Regions to plunge the galaxy once more into war that threatens to tear the Solo-Skywalker family apart. Can they and their allies both old and new unite to defeat this danger, and what sacrifices will doing so demand of them all?Or: what if Episode VII had been written by someone who knew and loved the Expanded Universe and wanted to preserve the essence of those stories while still creating something new, something that could be loved and appreciated by longtime fans and newcomers alike? The resulting story might have looked something a little like this...
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 127
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This whole trilogy idea has been percolating in my head since Disney announced they were doing sequels with new canon, and now with their third part about to release I finally decided it was time to stop dithering and start posting. Since I came up with the broad strokes before _The Force Awakens_ even hit theaters the main foundations of this trilogy are more Legends than Canon, but I've integrated most of the new characters (or merged them with their old Legends counterparts) so it's got a bit of both going on--but it's really its own separate continuity flavored by both.
> 
> This is neither a fix-it fic nor intended to disparage either canon. It's also not intended to be a "rewrite" of the new movies; rather this is a different way the Sequel Trilogy _could_ have been written, if someone who was a fan of the old EU had been in charge of the script from the beginning. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Please insert your own imaginary John Williams score for mood music. Thank you.

**THE DARK REBORN**

The Galactic Empire has fallen. After forty

years fighting a lingering but inevitable defeat

following the Battle of Endor, the Empire has agreed

to surrender. In a show of good faith, the NEW REPUBLIC

has pulled all but ceremonial remnants of their fleet away from

Coruscant, their galactic capital, for the treaty signing. Now dignitaries

from the two governments meet to usher in a new era of peace and freedom

for the galaxy, unaware of the dark threat approaching from the unknown regions…

**CORUSCANT: 40 YEARS ABE**

Out of the blackness of space comes a glittering jewel of a world, its entire surface covered in layer after layer of towering cityscape. The world is Coruscant, and from this distance it looks small and alone without the interstellar traffic that ought to be dancing around it. Today, this bustling hub of the galaxy has been reduced to hosting one meager _ Lambda- _class shuttle soaring in from the black depths of space—a late arrival for today’s ceremony.

All of the preparations for the momentous event are completed, all of the other participants already in place. Bunting in intermingled gray, white, red, and orange flaps in the breeze over a large central square many stories up from the squalid depths of Coruscant’s underlevels. The square is empty of sentients at the moment, although a table with two chairs sits waiting for occupants. Behind it flutter two tall banners, one displaying the chilling encircled gears that symbolize the Galactic Empire and the other the stylized upswept-wings emblem of the New Republic. Cheering and jeering crowds fill the surrounding streets, balconies, and walkways, although all speeder traffic is being kept at a distance by determined security forces. The two delegations of officials clustered on either side of the empty square are much quieter, some faces stoic and others jubilant, while they wait for the start of the ceremony that will end this long war at last.

The shuttle banks languidly over the crowd below and settles at a nearby landing pad which already holds two other _ Lambda _ -shuttles, twelve TIE interceptors, and a boxier cousin of the _ Lambda _designed for the transport of troops. On the opposite side of the square another landing pad holds a squadron of X-Wing fighters, their paint fresh and gleaming, with the signature red stripes of Rogue Squadron emblazoned across their sides. There are no shuttles on this landing pad, but a number of landspeeders nestle around the X-Wings like an admiring crowd. Security officers and drivers sit and stand among the Republic landspeeders; the Imperial landing pad is deserted except for the ships, although glimmers of motion behind the transparisteel of their viewport indicate that the pilots of the transports remain within.

The new arrival disgorges only a small complement of two stormtroopers and one gray-clad Imperial officer, who strides out a little faster than dignity should permit at such an ostentatious occasion. The stormtroopers follow close on her heels, a ceremonial escort, their blasters held low across their chests with the safeties engaged.

The young officer hurries to join her fellow Imperials, of whom there are several: twelve TIE pilots all in black, helmets on; a twenty-four-strong detachment of gleaming white stormtroopers; six men and women in their middle ages, all human, wearing stiff gray uniforms and bright rank bars; one void-black protocol droid whose insectoid head clashes discordantly with its humanoid body; and one elderly man clad all in white. He stands well ahead of the rest of the delegation, his lined face impassive beneath its generous white mustache. The colorful rank insignia on his voluminous chest is dwarfed by the impressive collection of medals and battle tags that surround it.

The new arrival hurries through the crowd, leaving her stormtroopers to fall into line alongside their fellow troops, and comes to a panting halt at the old man’s side. She salutes crisply.

For a long moment, the white-clad man--Grand Admiral Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of the forces of the Imperial Remnant--does not acknowledge her. He is an elderly man with a portly belly, broad shoulders, and plump cheeks. His white hair is wispy and receding but his brows are heavy and his mustache thick. He stands stiff-backed and firm despite his age, his posture still Imperial Academy-perfect despite long decades of war, hardship, and loss. His eyes, which are fixed on the New Republic delegation standing across the way, are still bright and clear.

After a long, stiff moment, he jerks his chin in a nod and says, “Report.”

_ “ _Everything is in readiness, Grand Admiral, sir,” the young officer says. Her voice is grim, heavy; the voice of a soldier carrying out portentous orders. “You may begin the ceremony at your convenience.”

Pellaeon nods, even less enthusiastically than before. “Well then,” he says quietly, “let us try and end it with dignity at least, shall we?”

The young officer looks confused. “Sir?” she says.

Pellaeon shakes his head. “Never mind, lieutenant. Never mind. You’ll understand one day...perhaps.”

Without giving the bewildered young officer time to sort out a response, Pellaeon gives himself a little shake, straightens his shoulders still further, raises his chin, and strides forward. The stormtroopers stay where they are but the officers move to follow their admiral, the young lieutenant trailing at the back of the group. She looks uncomfortable among so many generals, admirals, and Moffs.

Pellaeon does not look back at them. His bootheels click crisply on the immaculate permacrete surface and his sharp eyes do not waver from their fixed point in the center of the New Republic delegation walking to meet him from the other side of the square.

That delegation moves more slowly, the woman leading them looking much frailer than the robust Grand Admiral although she is also clad in white. Her long robes billow around her skeletally-thin frame and she leans heavily on the arm of a blue-clad Gotal male as she walks, as though too weak to support her own weight. Her gaze, however, is as steady as Pellaeon’s, and she has a small smile on her lined face despite the physical strain caused by the walk. She could have taken her hoverchair out to the table--no one would have thought less of her for that--but she wanted to come to the signing table on her own two feet, no matter how tottering those feet are these days.

Mon Mothma has been waiting for this day for a long, long time. Her hair has lost its rich color, her limbs much of their strength, and her skin its rosy complexion, but though her voice is weak her words retain their power to move and her presence inspires a cheer from the watching crowds.

Holocams are everywhere, some fixed and mounted while others swoop by on small repulsorlifts, filming everything. Large screens have been placed all over the city-planet so that everyone who wishes may watch the spectacle. Live Holonet transmissions are being beamed out across the galaxy so that everyone, everywhere, can watch as well.

A number of richly-dressed dignitaries in a wide variety of species and coloration follow Mon Mothma across the square while twelve starlighter pilots in bright orange and twenty-four Coruscant patrol officers in deep blue stand at parade rest behind them. The New Republic’s delegation is a much larger group than the small cluster of Imperial officers who follow Pellaeon--and a much more cheerful one, as well. A few eyes are dark with suspicion but for the most part there are smiles—some smug but most relieved or even elated—on the faces of the New Republic officials.

They, too, have been waiting for this day for a long time.

One of those who has been waiting longer than most is a light-skinned human woman who walks just behind Mon Mothma, her brown eyes tight with concern, her gaze fixed on the older woman. She looks happy but tense, as though poised to reach forward and catch the Chief of State should she stumble or fall. She has been many things, this tiny woman with graying hair coiled into two thick buns on either side of her face: senator, princess, rebel, orphan, politician, Jedi, soldier, wife, mother. Today she is here to see the end of a war she has been fighting her whole life. She is here to honor her murdered homeworld, to represent her fellow citizens, and to welcome a future that holds the peace she has so long desired.

Her name is Leia Organa-Solo, and while she is stouter and more wrinkled than the waifish young girl who first took up arms against the Empire, she has never lost her strength or her hopes. She, too, is clad in white, a simple gown in comparison with those boasted by many of the more ostentatious and colorful dignitaries around her, accented with nothing but a plain silver belt and necklace. She wears a long white robe over the gown, its hem embroidered with delicate silver thread that matches the heavy lines of silver that twist through her long brown hair.

The Imperial delegation reaches the signing table first. Pellaeon clasps his hands behind his back and waits patiently at parade-rest; his officers behind him do likewise. He does not sit until the New Republic delegation has reached the table as well and the Gotal aide assisting Mon Mothma has helped ease her stiffly into her chair.

They reach across the table, the Grand Admiral and the Chief of State, and shake hands. A cheer rises from the crowd and Leia, smiling, has to blink tears from her eyes. Like the rest of the officials, she waits several paces back from the table, leaving a wide aisle of empty space so everyone can see the two leaders. Only Mon Mothma’s Gotal aide stands near them, his eyes fixed in the distance over Pellaeon’s head, his hands clasped neatly at his belt.

_ “ _It is good to see you in person again, Gilad,” Mon Mothma says genially.

Pellaeon forces a smile but his eyes are unhappy. “I hope that you will forgive me the breach in protocol if I do not lie and say the same, Iwo,” he replies. “You must understand, of course, that I hoped such a day as this would never come.”

Mon Mothma’s smile does not flicker. “And yet you agree, do you not, that the only way for the galaxy to move forward is as a united entity bound in peace?”

_ “ _I do believe that,” Pellaeon says.

Mon Mothma tilts her head. “Then let us begin that peace at last,” she says, and beckons gracefully.

Two protocol droids step forward, both polished to a shine bright enough to leave spots in the eyes of onlookers. The Imperial droid is as black as the void while the droid that walks up from the back of the New Republic delegation is a bright gold and his face, in contrast to the bulbous-eyed snout of the Imperial droid, is flat and round and friendly with bright yellow eyes and a small, perpetually-surprised sliver of a mouth whose size bellies his vocal nature.

Today however C-3PO is appropriately silent as he steps forward and exchanges datapads with his grim Imperial counterpart. His eyes flicker as he analyzes the data on the screen in front of him, then he moves his head in a stiff nod.

_ “ _The treaty is ready for signing, your excellency, grand admiral,” C-3PO announces happily. “All data is in complete agreement with the previously negotiated terms and language.”

_ “ _Affirmative,” the Imperial protocol droid rasps out, its voice a grating buzz in comparison to Threepio’s lighter and more lilting tones. “The ceremony may proceed.”

Pellaeon’s shoulders seem to sag a little, then he takes a deep breath and straightens his posture once more. “Of course,” he says gruffly. “As you wish.” He takes the datapad that his protocol droid hands him and stares at it, but his eyes look distant.

Mon Mothma’s Gotal aide takes the Imperial datapad from C-3PO and places it on the table in front of her, then steps back. Mon Mothma raises her hand over the datapad, ready to affix her biometric print and signature, then pauses, looking curiously at Pellaeon. He has not moved and his hands lie flat on the table alongside the other datapad.

_ “ _Gil?” Mon Mothma murmurs. “Do you need a moment?”

Pellaeon looks up at her suddenly, and the stiff resolution is gone from his face. Abruptly, he looks old and tired. He gives her a sorrowful, resigned smile. His eyes are troubled. “I need more than that, I fear, madam. Regrettably, I must instead do my duty.”

In the crowd of watching dignitaries, Leia suddenly takes a step forward, her face furrowing into a concerned frown. “Wait--” she starts to say, drawing outraged stares from her fellows at the interruption, but before anyone can chide her the square erupts in chaos.

Alarms scream, blasters raise, and smoke pours from the Imperial protocol droid as though it was suddenly hit by a flamethrower, although there is no evidence of any attack—yet.

Overhead, disquietingly low, starships suddenly appear, decelerating from hyperspace dangerously close to Coruscant’s atmosphere. The unmistakable wedge-shaped silhouettes of Imperial Star Destroyers cast heavy shadows on the world below while TIE fighters spill from their hangers in a barely-controlled burst of aerial foolhardiness. Several small explosions point to the near-misses that came too close as disoriented pilots fail to order their racing craft into safe passage lanes, but the Star Destroyers themselves seem unaffected by the chaos pervading their hastily-assembled starfighter screen.

Then—with an eerie silence where instinct insists there should be enormous sound—an even larger, more menacing shape jolts into view a mere thousand meters or so above the Star Destroyers: an _ Executor_-class Imperial Super Star Destroyer, larger than many cities and more powerful than five Mon Cal battle cruisers. There were thought to have barely been more than twenty true Super Star Destroyers constructed in the entire history of the Empire, all of them long accounted for one way or the other, most of them destroyed.

This one is so pristine that it looks like it has never seen battle before or, if it has, then it has only just emerged from an impossibly extensive repair and retrofitting at a spaceyard equal to or superior to the famed Kuat Drive Yards. This is a gleaming, glittering razor of Imperial glory long thought lost to the galaxy...and it hangs there, in the skies over an under-defended Coruscant, for a long moment.

Then its turbolasers open fire.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve realized I can’t possibly maintain outside-observer-style present tense for an entire story. So from this point on, we’re going to switch to the more comfortable third-person-limited-omniscient past tense. Think of it as though the rest of this is the novelization of the movie that began in the last chapter. Sorry for the shift!

**CORUSCANT: 40 YEARS ABE**

The first streak of deadly green light struck the edge of the celebration square, vaporizing several meters of permacrete and turning the next few meters into a superheated, bubbling metal pond. It did not directly strike any of the delegates, but that didn’t matter: turbolaser fire was made to destroy starships, not individuals. Even diluted by several kilometers of atmosphere the beam was still intense enough to fry the seven senators and dignitaries closest to the platform’s edge, and to send the rest sprawling. Many were on fire, many were bleeding, all were screaming. The watching crowd screamed too, panic quickly replacing anticipation and celebration.

One scream stood out above the rest: “LEIA!”

Leia Organa-Solo stirred groggily, her white robes now stained black with ash and streaked with blood in various colors. More blood—red—oozed from cuts on her forehead, her jaw, her hands. She groaned, lifted her head, blinked the world into partial focus—and suddenly she was on her feet, hands reaching to her belt for a weapon and comlink she did not have.

Around her lay other bodies, many groaning or screaming, some eerily still. The colorful finery of the New Republic delegation was tattered and torn, blood from a dozen different species seeping across the once-immaculate permacrete in one ugly dark stain. Leia started to kneel, to check for injuries on the blue-skinned Mon Cal lying by her feet, but a rough hand grabbed her arm and jerked her sideways.

Leia lifted a hand to strike back, braced her feet for a fight—then relaxed when she recognized the worried, ashen features of the man clutching at her.

He was tall for a pilot, a handsome human male with light brown skin and curly black hair, and right now his deep-set dark eyes were wide with terror. He wore an orange jumpsuit, thinner and more fitted than the usual baggy garb that X-Wing pilots flew in battle but unmistakably drawn from the same source: dress clothes for members of Starfighter Command on ceremonial assignment. Instead of the blocky white life support system that ordinarily encircled a pilot’s chest, he wore a plain white vest emblazoned with the New Republic’s elegant insignia in a dark orange that almost matched his jumpsuit. He had shiny black boots on his feet, shiny black gloves on his hands, and very little room in his tight-fitted clothing for the usual clutter of tools and trinkets that pilots carried around with them. Until the shooting had started, he had looked entirely out of his element but now that the adrenaline of battle was coursing through his veins, he looked like himself again.

_ “ _Commander,” Leia gasped. Her chest felt tight; was it due to the smoke, or had she been injured when she had fallen? She shook her head; it didn’t matter now. “Get your squadron in the air.”

_ “ _Ma’am, you’re hurt—”

_ “ _I’m fine,” Leia snapped. “And I’m not important right now. Coruscant is under attack and our fleet is an hour away.” She jabbed a finger at the nearest public broadcast screen, which now showed nothing but white static. “If they assume the worst and jump now, it still won’t be fast enough for them to get here before the planet falls. If our attackers have hacked the feed with some sort of excuse to delay panic—and I wouldn’t put it past them—and the fleet stays on station to avoid precipitating the kind of incident their arrival would cause to an in-progress peace ceremony, it’ll be even longer. Coruscant doesn’t have that long, commander.”

_ “ _And I only have twelve X-Wings here, ma’am. I know Rogue Squadron is good at miracles, but that’s an entire fleet up there, complete with a Super Star Destroyer. Even we aren’t that good. What do you propose I do about it?”

Leia’s gaze was as hard as the pilot’s as she ignored the pain starting to unfold through her body to tilt her chin up and meet his eyes. “You have to get a message out,” she said. When his frown didn’t lighten with comprehension, Leia stabbed her hand toward the white-snow screen again. “Do you hear that? No, listen--_listen!” _she ordered him. Now she cupped both her hands along his cheeks and closed her own eyes, knowing he would obediently do the same. “Listen through the screams, through the explosions; do you hear that? The high-pitched whine?”

_ “ _Comm jamming,” he whispered.

_ “ _Comm jamming,” Leia confirmed. “Someone needs to get past that blockade of ships to get a message to the fleet.” Her dirty face was grim. “Someone who can pull off a miracle.”

_ “ _Understood, ma’am,” the commander of Rogue Squadron said. “We’ll bring the fleet. Just stay out of trouble while I’m gone, will you?”

Leia smiled sadly. “No empty promises, flyboy.” She dropped her hands to his shoulders and gave them a little squeeze before letting go. “Now get your pilots in the air.”

_ “ _ Yes, ma’am,” he said, but he hesitated again. “_All _my pilots, ma’am?” he asked.

Leia’s face was hard and hollow. “All your pilots,” she repeated. “You may need them all if anyone is going to make it out.”

_ “ _Understood, ma’am,” he said again, softly this time. “And you?”

Leia raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?” she said. “Someone needs to get Mon Mothma out of here. And if Tolokai has already done so, well, then someone needs to get their hands on Admiral Pellaeon and find out what he has to do with this betrayal.”

The pilot nodded and started to step away, but just then another orange-clad figure slammed into both him and the former princess, knocking them to the ground.

Leia cried out, but fell silent immediately as blasterfire flashed by overhead.

She shoved both pilots off of her and rolled over onto her elbows, peering through the smoke. A lifetime of experience made it easy to recognize the hazy figures of stormtroopers marching forward step by step across the square, spewing blasterfire. Tattered bunting drifted downward around them.

_ “ _We have to move,” Leia commanded. “Fast.”

The smaller pilot rolled to face her. She was a pale young woman whose brown hair was wrapped in a tight braid around the curve of her head, a plain and sensible style that would be comfortable inside a flight helmet. There was nothing comfortable about the blazing look on her face, however. “Mom, stay down! It’s too dangerous!”

_ “ _It’s going to get a lot more dangerous in a few minutes,” Leia said grimly. She caught her daughter’s black-gloved hand. “Breha, honey, you need to—” She had to stop and clear her throat before she could continue; the platform was wreathed in heavy, acrid smoke. “You need to get in the air before the stormtroopers transmit telemetry to the ships up there to target your fighters.”

_ “ _Mom, I’m not leaving you here—”

_ “ _That’s an order, sweetie,” Leia said. Her voice was battlefield hard.

_ “ _You can’t order me--”

_ “ _Not an order from me.” Leia inched to her knees and pointed to the long-limbed man lying on his stomach next to them, his hands cupped over his eyes to give him a better view through the smoke. “An order from your commanding officer.”

_ “ _But—”

_ “ _She’s right, Lieutenant Organa-Solo. I need you in the air asap with the rest of the Rogues. Coruscant—the entire New Republic—is counting on us.”

_ “ _ But _ mom—” _

_ “ _I love you, sweetie.” Leia leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “But you have something you need to do right now, and so do I. Commander Dameron?”

_ “ _I think I have their pattern of fire mapped now,” he replied blandly. “When I say go…”

Leia’s nod was brisk. “Good,” she said. “Breha?”

_ “ _Okay, mom,” Breha said softly. “I can feel Bail—he’s close. He’s okay.”

One of the tight knots around Leia’s chest eased. “Good,” she said. “See if you can nudge him to get to safety.”

Breha snorted. “Yeah, sure,” she said. For a moment the worry on her face broke and the crooked smile that flashed across her lips made her look remarkably like her father. “I’ll get right on that.”

_ “ _Leia, are you sure—” Commander Dameron ventured, but Leia silenced him with a look.

_ “ _Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Of course you are. In that case, may the Force be with you...and...MARK!”

The three of them lurched to their feet, Leia and Breha’s hands clinging together for a moment before they broke apart, the two pilots running back in the direction of their X-Wings and the one-time princess plunging deeper into the smoke.


	3. Chapter 3

**CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Scattered blaster bolts sprayed from the smoky haze that covered the platform as Breha and Poe sprinted for their ships, heads ducked low as though that might help keep them from being hit with a stray blast. In addition to the distant, aimless blaster fire they also had to dodge around panicking senators and dignitaries.

Breha almost ran full-tilt into an overdressed Bothan who flailed at her in a panic, crying, “Where are the guards? Where are the guards!” in a high-pitched shriek.

_ “ _I don’t know,” Breha said. “Senator Fey’lya, please, I need to get to my—”

She watched in horror as a blaster bolt shot past the side of her head, crisping several strands of her coiled braid, and struck him in the face. Fey’lya fell back with a muffled, watery cry. She stared, horror-struck and motionless, at the body, the smell of scorched fur strong enough to make her sway with nausea until Poe grabbed her by the arm and dragged her bodily away.

Dignitaries weren’t the only bodies they had to dodge, living and dead and wounded alike; as Breha and Poe crossed from the permacrete square to the landing platform where the X-Wings and landspeeders stood parked, the crowd thickened, several audience members having raced toward what they saw as the comparative safety of the New Republic security forces and starfighter pilots.

Although little of the smoke and blaster fire had yet made it this far across the square, chaos reigned.

_ “ _Rogues!” Poe yelled, as soon as he came within auditory range of his squadron. “Rogues, disengage from whatever you’re doing, get in your ships, and prep for launch! Move it, people!”

He and Breha shoved their way through the panicky crowd, Breha sticking close to Poe’s heels; for all that she was the daughter of legends she was also a skinny young human woman a little shorter than galactic average. Commander Dameron, on the other hand, had the commanding presence of several years of snubfighter leadership under his belt and a willingness to use his elbows like they were proton bombs.

They moved forward stubbornly against the press of bodies. The going got easier once they came in close proximity to their ships: the security cordon around the X-Wings was still intact, and the civilians were being held back by the violet force beams projected like a fence around the delicate fighters.

Poe and Breha each flashed the data-spikes worn high on the sleeves of their dress uniforms and the barrier dispelled long enough to permit them to pass through.

_ “ _Rogues!” Poe bellowed again, throwing his voice above the tumult with parade-ground pitch. “Get in your kriffing ships!”

Several pilots were already sitting in or perched on top of their X-Wings, and they scrambled to drop into their seats, pull on helmets, or buckle crash restraints. The rest made for their fighters at a run, some veering sideways to talk to the commander as they ran.

_ “ _What about life support units?” asked a nervous Devaronian man. “Dress uniforms don’t have them built-in—”

_ “ _And there’s no time to go back and get them,” Poe interrupted. “We’ll fly without.”

_ “ _But commander—”

_ “ _Just make sure you don’t have to go EV, right?” Poe said. His smile was grim.

_ “ _Right,” the Devaronian pilot said. His smile was even weaker than his commander’s, and he fingered a gold talisman hanging around his neck as though it was a good luck charm or a sacred object. He took a deep breath and hurried to his starfighter, jumping for the s-foil and clambering up to his cockpit with the ease of a man accustomed to minor acrobatics.

_ “ _What’s the mission, commander?” demanded a heavy-set human woman with short brown hair and a heavy frown. “They don’t expect us to take on all those Destroyers, do they?”

Poe shook his head. “All we have to do is get a message out, Ito. No miracles today.”

Ito raised a skeptical brow. “Getting out of atmo alive in the face of that much firepower sounds like miracle enough to me,” she said.

Poe clapped her on the shoulder. “I know,” he said. He gave her a cocky grin. “Good thing miracles are our stock in trade, right?”

They separated as they reached their starfighters, Poe and Breha veering to the left and Ito breaking off toward her own ship, which was parked at the far end of the formation.

All around them, pilots were climbing into ships, some of them helping to boost their less-acrobatic squadronmates onto the wings and into the cockpits of the narrow snubfighters. Ordinarily there would have been landing crews with ladders and mechanics running last minute once-overs to make sure the X-Wings were fit to fly, but today the Rogues were on their own—

Or mostly on their own, at least. A sharp _ snap-hiss _broke through the general tumult and Poe and Breha spun around in time to see a lean brown-haired young man in drab brown robes leap out of the air to land at their backs. His green lightsaber swung in a quick arc, knocking two blaster bolts aside before they could hit either pilot.

_ “ _Bail!” Breha cried.

_ “ _Hey, sis,” Bail Solo said, flashing her a tight grin over one shoulder. He stood in guard position for another moment, his dark brown eyes scanning for further threats, before his shoulders sagged in relief and he clicked off the lightsaber. “Need a hand?”

_ “ _Nope,” Breha answered blithely, “everything seems to be under control now.”

Bail rolled his eyes, then turned to face Poe. “Commander Dameron, anything I can do to help?”

_ “ _Just keep the bystanders back so they don’t get fried by our thrusters,” Poe said. He looked a little rattled by Bail’s sudden appearance, or perhaps by the realization of how close he had just come to catching a blaster bolt in his back.

Bail nodded. “Sure thing,” he said. “What happened?”

_ “ _Did you miss the Imperial Star Destroyers dropping out of hyperspace overhead?” Breha said tartly.

Bail rolled his eyes again. “No, obviously, I meant—why? This was supposed to be a peace treaty.”

_ “ _Your guess is as good as mine right now, kid,” Poe said distractedly, running his eyes along the twelve red-streaked X-Wings to check on the status of his pilots. “But your sister and I need to get in the air and go fetch the fleet before things turn into any more of a disaster than they already have, so you’ll have to pack the sibling rivalry in for the day, okay?”

_ “ _Yessir,” said Bail, while Breha blushed and nodded.

_ “ _Bail!” a new voice shouted, and the Solo siblings both spun to see a Rutian Twi’lek in an orange dress uniform running toward them. In one hand he held a helmet with attached lekku sleeves; the other he flung in a hug around the startled but smiling Bail. “What are you doing here?”

_ “ _Seeing you off, of course,” Bail said.

_ “ _He’s lying,” Breha said. “It’s nothing so altruistic. He just selfishly came over to stop Commander Dameron and I from getting shot.”

_ “ _Stop making me look bad,” Bail told his sister while the young Twi’lek smirked, his sharp teeth bright against the bold blue of his skin.

_ “ _Fortunately for you,” the Twi’lek said, “I have been your sister’s wingmate for long enough to know not to listen to anything she says.”

Breha stuck her tongue out at both men, grabbed Bail in a hug, and said, “Be careful. Go get mom! She’s off doing something stupid again!”

Bail nodded. “Big surprise,” he said, and hugged her back. “May the Force be with you!”

As Breha ran off to vault onto her own X-Wing and cram her helmet on over her still-smoking braid, Bail turned to the Twi’lek and caught his free hand, squeezing it hard. “That goes for you, too, Jaen,” he said.

_ “ _The Force always is, with you around,” Jaen Vao said, leaning in to kiss Bail on the cheek. Then he winked, twitched one lekku in a pert gesture, and whirled to run to his own X-Wing.

_ “ _All right, Rogues, I hope your engines are hot, because we have some anxious friends up there ready to fly a few rounds of gwayo bird with us!” Poe Dameron called from his X-Wing, punching the button to lower his canopy. As it descended he leaned forward far enough to see Bail, whom he saluted casually.

Bail returned the gesture with a broad wave and an anxious smile, then ducked his head and raced for the barrier. While it was easily capable of holding back an ordinary crowd, it could have been twice as tall and still offered little inconvenience to a Jedi Knight. Rather than another flashy jump, this time he merely held out a hand, closed his eyes, and parted the beam around him with a gentle Force nudge. Then he clipped his lightsaber back to his belt and vanished into the crowd.

Poe switched to his ship’s commlink, dialing up the default squadron frequency. As he waited for the encryption to cycle on he asked his astromech, “It’s gonna be a dicey one today, buddy. You ready for this?”

The little droid replied with a cheerful and enthusiastic series of trills and whistles, making Poe grin. He sobered as his comm popped, announcing its readiness to broadcast, and when he spoke again his voice was serious. “All right, Rogues, here’s the mission: go get the fleet. With that long-range comm jamming up, there’s no way to tell whether or not they know we’re in trouble—so we’ll be playing message runner today.” As he spoke, Poe flipped switches and twirled dials across his cockpit, getting his X-Wing ready to fly. Thankfully short-range comms--at least closed and hardened ones like those sported by modern snubfighter squadrons--didn’t seem to be affected by the jamming; running a mission without the ability to communicate with his squadron was something that Poe had done once before and had no desire to ever repeat, especially a mission that would have to be planned on-the-fly like this one. “That means no heroic stunts, people,” he continued briskly. “Engage as little as possible with the enemy. We’re flying to evade and, when we have to, to punch through—not to fight.”

_ “ _Wouldn’t it make more sense to just skip around to the opposite side of the planet then, Leader?” The voice on the other end of the comm was steady, not fearful; it was a question born of pragmatism rather than cowardice. Leeso Voond, a Duro woman with a long scar down the side of her green-gray face, was not someone who spent a lot of time wrestling with fear, but she was someone who could take a vibroblade straight through the emotional detritus of an issue to get to the core of a mission.

This time she wasn’t on target, though. Poe shook his head. “Not with at least four Star Destroyers and a Super up there, ready to target anything down here that looks tempting. Shooting straight up at them will put us in their targeting brackets for less time than breaking horizontal.” His preflight checks all in the green, Poe raised his snubfighter onto its repulsorlifts and angled for a take-off. Around him, the rest of the squadron was going airborne as well.

_ “ _But it will be pointing us straight up their turbolaser emplacements,” Breha pointed out. She didn’t sound worried about it; her tone was more that of a woman discussing lunch plans that odds of survival.

_ “ _True,” Poe said, and his face broke into a predatory grin. “So let’s see how many of those turbolasers we can destroy, or at least distract, on our way out.” He paused, then as he angled his X-Wing up and hit the thrusters, added, “and may the Force be with us.”

Twelve X-Wings rose out of the smoke and into the sky. From the other end of the wide platform, twelve blue-black TIE interceptors followed, screaming.


	4. Chapter 4

**CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

On the ground below, Leia Organa-Solo fanned smoke away from her face and pushed forward across the platform with apparent unconcern for the occasional spray of blaster bolts burning through the haze.

“Iwo!” she shouted. “Iwo, can you hear me?”

“I am afraid she cannot, princess.”

Leia froze. She turned, stepped through a plume of smoke rising from the back of a blue-clad Gotal, and saw Grand Admiral Pellaeon. He was kneeling beside the thin, white-clad body of an elderly human female. His white uniform was streaked with smoke and his thinning hair was in disarray, but it was the sorrow on his face that looked out of place as he gently folded Mon Mothma’s arms over her chest and smoothed her short hair. Her eyes were already closed.

“No,” Leia whispered. “How—did she—?”

“I don’t believe she felt much,” Pellaeon said. “The first turbolaser salvo threw her from her chair, cracked her head on the permacrete. I suppose it was just too much for her after everything.” He looked up, meeting Leia’s eyes with his own tired brown ones. “It may have been too fast for her to realize what was happening, to understand that it had all gone wrong. Is it wrong of me to hope that it was? To hope that she died knowing peace?”

Leia hesitated. Something about this wasn’t adding up. Her hands strayed toward her empty belt again and she forced them to hang still by her sides. “Admiral, what happened?” she asked.

Pellaeon sighed and levered himself to his feet. It was the movement of an old man. He looked down at Mon Mothma’s still body for a moment, then up and over Leia’s head. She wasn’t sure if he was looking at the horizon, at the turbolaser fire still lancing down around them, sowing panic and devastation in the fleeing crowd, or at some more distant sight beyond the range of vision. Leia ignored it all to focus on the elderly Grand Admiral.

“I always tried to be an honorable soldier, princess,” he said. “You know this.”

Leia inclined her head in a slow, hesitant nod. While she of all people had little good to say about the Empire, it was widely agreed that Gilad Pellaeon was one of the shining examples of what was best about it; of what _ could _be good about it, in the right hands. For a few short, glorious weeks Leia had entertained the idea that those hands were finally here, that what was left of the Empire’s order and efficiency was finally going to be employed in the galaxy’s benefit rather than in service to tyranny...but the Imperial ships overhead, and the stormtroopers steadily advancing around them, put the lie to those hopes. Distantly, Leia could hear the unmistakable wail of TIE fighters, reedy and thin above the crackle of flames and the blistering pulse of turbolaser fire.

“I have done many things I am not proud of, as have all soldiers.” Pellaeon straightened the chair he had been sitting in a few short minutes earlier, when he had been hesitating to sign the peace documents that would have ended the war between the Empire and the New Republic for good. Leia wondered, now, if he had hesitated on purpose—not wanting to commit that last base crime on top of this greater betrayal. “Some because they were the best choice of bad options,” Pellaeon continued, “others because I was ordered to and could not see a means of refuting or refusing; still others merely because I was frightened or obedient...but I have always tried to be honorable in the carrying out of my duties.”

“I know,” Leia said. “Even I can admit to that, admiral.”

Pellaeon’s eyes were still far away, not on her. The smile he mustered was brief and sad. “We do not always have the luxury of acting as we would wish,” he said. “Sometimes we must commit acts that are anathema to us. Sometimes out of necessity, or expediency...and sometimes because those acts are forced upon us.”

Another burst of turbolaser fire sounded nearby, but the square where the peace should have been signed was not struck again. The starship gunners were unlikely to risk firing at it again as long as their Grand Admiral stayed there. Leia unconsciously took a step closer to him, away from the potential blast radius of another shot.

“You are the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Remnant,” she pointed out reasonably, trying to quell the sudden flutter of her heart. “Who could force you to undertake an act so abhorrent—unless...you aren’t referring to this treaty, are you?” she asked, waving her hand to indicate the scattered datapads.

Pellaeon looked down and saw one of them—impossible, now, to tell if it was the one the Imperials had brought to the table or the New Republic’s—near his booted feet. Its screen was cracked but it was still powered on, the words of the treaty still visible through the sheen of dust and ash that coated it. He lifted the datapad, looked at it for a long moment, then set it on the table.

“No,” he told Leia. “I am not referring to our surrender. I was ready for that, princess. I _ pushed _for that.”

Leia nodded again. Now was not the time or the place to point out that she no longer went by the title of princess; had not for many years, now. She suspected to old men like Gilad Pellaeon she would always be that feisty young princess arguing passionately on the Senate floor. Ordinarily that thought annoyed her, but today it just made her tired. How would that girl she had once been react to the idea that the peace she fought so hard for would not be achieved for a long, long forty years? For longer, even, if today went the way she feared?

“I am referring…” Pellaeon waved a heavy hand around at the smoke and devastation all around them; at the fallen chair where Mon Mothma had been sitting, alive and hopeful, so short a time ago. “I am referring to all of this.”

“What happened?” Leia asked.

Pellaeon shook her head. “Duty,” he said. The word came out like a judge’s verdict, heavy and final and merciless.

Leia raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps you could explain that,” she said.

Pellaeon’s shoulders lifted in a sigh. “Do you wish to join me?” he asked, indicating the other chair. “I can assure you that none of the stormtroopers here today will dare to fire anywhere near you so long as you are in my vicinity.”

Leia shook her head. “I would rather stand,” she said.

“Of course,” said Pellaeon. He sighed again and lifted the cracked datapad. “It could have worked, couldn’t it?” he asked. His voice was so soft that Leia had to strain her ears to hear him over the screams and shots and shouts around her. “It could have worked.”

“It could have,” she agreed. “Maybe it still can. If you tell your forces to stand down…”

“They aren’t my forces,” Pellaeon said. “Not anymore.”

“You’ve been removed from command?”

“I’ve been usurped,” Pellaeon said simply. “I am still Grand Admiral, still Supreme Commander of the Imperial Remnant...but even the Supreme Commander must obey those who outrank him, and I am not Emperor.”

Leia’s blood ran cold. “Who—?”

“Mom!”

She spun at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Mom, where are you?”

_ “ _Bail, get out of here!” Leia snapped. She started forward through the smoke and a blaster bolt flashed in front of her, almost scorching her nose. She flinched back.

Another light suddenly flared into life amidst the smoke, a bright green one. It batted back the blaster bolts that converged on it and several mechanically-augmented screams came from somewhere over Pellaeon’s shoulder. The lightsaber vanished again, removing the convenient target of its glow, and a short humanoid form in a long brown robe ran forward to grab Leia by the arm.

“Mom, come on, let’s get out of here!” Bail Solo said. He was a lean, tightly-muscled boy a handspan taller than Leia with floppy brown hair, pale skin, and bright brown eyes. A thin braid held his shoulder-length hair back so it wouldn’t obscure his vision. He looked much like his twin sister, but unlike Breha, he wore the plain robes of a Jedi rather than the bright orange of a fighter pilot. He was also less adept at masking his emotions and right now, fear poured off of him in waves—fear for his mother, mainly, although once he realized the import of today’s Imperial betrayal that feeling would expand to encompass the rest of the galaxy as well.

He tugged at his mother’s arm, trying to get her out of the line of fire before it started up again.

Leia shook her head and looked back at Pellaeon, who sat where she had left him, looking as settled as a man in the garden of his own comfortable estate. He met Leia’s eyes and gave her another tired, short smile. “It was an honor to know you, princess, and an honor to fight you,” he said. “It would have been an honor to work with you, too.”

“It still could be,” Leia offered. “Come with us—”

“And lend you my expertise in warfare against my Empire? No,” Pellaeon shook his head. “That I fear I cannot do.”

“If they are dishonorable, isn’t betraying them what honor demands?” Leia ventured.

Pellaeon shook his head again. “In this case it is duty, not honor, that I must obey. My regrets, princess. And may the Force be with you.” He sighed. “I fear you’re going to need it.”

“Mom come _ on!” _Bail cried again. This time he used the Force to augment his pull and Leia stumbled toward him.

“Your sister—”

“She’s in the air already,” Bail said, relief mingling with the worry in his voice as his mother at last allowed him to move her forward, away from the slow advance of stormtroopers. “She’s worried but okay, and moving away from us. The comm-jamming is still up so that’s all I know right now. She’ll be less worried once she can feel we aren’t in danger anymore, so come on. Let’s get out of here and help Rey concentrate before she gets blown out of the sky, okay?”

“Okay,” Leia said. She was starting to go numb around the pain of her bumps and bruises and the blood on her face was drying. She wondered that her eyes could still be dry, too, and only belatedly realized that they weren’t: she was crying, had been since the explosions started.

As they gained distance from Pellaeon, sparse blasterfire began to pierce the smoke around them again but Bail was half-sunk in a Force trance, navigating the paths of danger and safety on Jedi instinct. Twice he had to ignite his lightsaber to batter shots away from him and Leia, but they took no more damage as they traversed the savaged platform.

Each step seemed to drag at Leia’s feet as though she were moving through heavy gravity, or thick liquid, but it was the weight of broken hopes pulling at her, not the ground.

A warbling, animal-like bellow jolted her out of her fuge. “Chewie?” Leia gasped.

Bail’s face lit up in a grin. “Chewie,” he confirmed. “Chewie! Down here!” He ignited his lightsaber again, waving it overhead like a landing beacon. The smoke around them started to waft away in shreds as the sound of repulsorlifts approached them through the tumult and the screams. At the sound of Bail’s voice the rumble intensified, the source of the noise banking toward them more sharply, and then the familiar saucer-shaped side of the _ Millennium Falcon _broke through the last of the smoke.

Leia felt her steps, for a moment, grow lighter.

Chewbacca bellowed again, this time with both delight and impatience as he spotted Leia and Bail. He was standing on the open boarding ramp of the ship, one furry hand wrapped around the hydraulic column that raised and lowered the ramp, the other stretching toward the two humans as though even he had a long enough reach to simply lean out and pull them aboard across the half-dozen meters between them.

The ship lowered carefully toward the permacrete and Leia and Bail hurried, nearly running, to meet it.

“You first,” Leia ordered.

“Mom, I’m a Jedi—”

“And I’m your mother,” Leia interrupted curtly. “I’m not arguing, Bail.”

Bail sighed, rolled his eyes like he was an adolescent again instead of a young man of twenty, and gathered his strength for the leap. He closed his eyes, visualized his target, and boosted himself with the Force into a long, soaring arc that deposited him neatly on the edge of the boarding ramp—a little _ too _neatly, and he wobbled on the rim for a moment before Chewbacca snagged him by the tunic and pulled him aboard. The Wookiee rumbled a greeting that was half-complaint, half-relief, and gave him a helpful shove up the ramp.

Bail hurried aboard, out of the way, and down below his mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath in preparation for her own jump, centering herself in the Force through the wave of shattered hopes and painful deaths. Then her eyes flew open again and she turned at a shrill cry: “Mistress Leia! Oh, Mistress Leia!”

C-3PO tottered forward as fast as his stiff metal legs could carry him. “Oh, please don’t leave without me!” the protocol droid wailed. He waved his arms over his head in a desperate bid to be more visible, one hand clutching a slim datapad. “Mistress Leia!”

“Threepio?” Leia said, plainly bewildered. She shook her head and snapped, “Well hurry it up then! Han won’t wait forever!”

“Oh dear!” Threepio wailed. “I assure you, mistress, I am moving as fast as I—oh!”

A blaster bolt flashed by close enough to scorch a long black streak across Threepio’s shiny shoulder. “I’m doomed!” he cried. “Never mind, Mistress Leia, save yourself! I’m done for!”

Leia shook her head. “It’s all right, Threepio,” she said, and closed her eyes again. This time instead of preparing to jump she stretched out her hand, fingers splayed, toward the pessimistic droid. “I’ve got you.”

With a sharp little “Oh!” of surprise, Threepio raised off the ground and soared smoothly toward the hovering YT-1300 stock light freighter. “Oh deeeeaaaaar!” he wailed as Leia deposited him, a bit hastily, on the ramp. Chewbacca grabbed him by the arm, growled unhappily, and shoved him up the ramp in Bail’s wake. He bellowed anxiously at Leia and leaned forward farther over the edge of the ramp, as though preparing to snatch her out of midair.

Leia ignored both the Wookiee and the staccato retort of blasterfire tracking toward her, bent her knees, and pushed herself into a long Force-assisted leap.

A dozen bright red blaster bolts pierced the space where she had just been standing, but Leia was already gone.

Her dirty white robes flapped around her as she landed heavily on the ramp of the ship. Chewie reached out and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her in for a quick half-hug and a rumble of reassurance before shoving her up the ramp in the wake of her son and the droid. He followed, bellowing a command, and the ramp began to rise while he was still climbing, forcing the tall Wookiee to duck his head to avoid banging it on the hatchway.

The _Millennium Falcon _banked away from the carnage and headed for the skies.


	5. Chapter 5

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

In the upper atmosphere above Coruscant, a fierce battle was taking place between Rogue Squadron and a group of Imperial TIE interceptors—once twelve in number in counterpart to the Rogues, but already now reduced to eight thanks both to the superior shooting and flying of the Rogues, and to the X-Wings’ greater suitability to atmospheric engagements.

The TIEs, with their squat wings and wider profile, suffered more drag from air resistance, particularly when turning, and while the pointed interceptor was less hampered than an ordinary TIE, their broad solar panels had nothing on an X-Wing’s sleeker s-foils—not in atmosphere, anyway. In the frictionless void of space a TIE, particularly an interceptor, was both faster and more maneuverable than an X-Wing and ordinarily a canny snubfighter commander like Poe Dameron would have held his pilots to atmospheric maneuvering as long as the enemy fighters were willing to oblige by flying under such a handicap—but their mission today wasn’t to vape the enemy, or even to win.

It was to _ run_.

_ “ _Break atmo when you can and jump to hyperspace at your first opportunity, Rogues,” Poe ordered as he threw his X-Wing into a dizzying loop designed to maximize the drag tugging at the squint trying to follow him. It set up an easy shot for his wingmate, Leeso, who obligingly drilled the TIE with two quad-linked laserburts, puncturing the spherical cockpit with a blaze of fire. Neither bothered to see if the pilot ejected; TIEs were not known for their survivability, although the interceptor was a monumental upgrade to the standard TIE in that respect—and many others.

Angling his ship around for an easy, atmosphere-friendly turn that would land him on Breha and Jaen’s tail so he and Leeso could vape the pair of squints dogging their exhaust, Poe continued dictating instructions to his pilots: “Do not, repeat, do _ not _ wait for the entire squadron to form-up before commencing jump. As soon as you can make a break for it, do. Don’t wait for the rest of us; we’ll follow as we can…but we _ need _to get that message to the fleet at all costs. Do you understand me?”

_ “ _Rogue Two, copy,” Leeso said immediately, her voice its usual toneless rasp.

_ “ _Rogue Three, I hear you commander.”

_ “ _Rogue Four understands, sir.”

One by one his pilots called in, ending with Rogues Eleven and Twelve—Breha and Jaen, the youngest and newest transfers to the squadron. Poe might have worried about them more in an engagement like they were about to face, but Breha was a Jedi as well as a prodigally talented pilot and she was more than capable of looking after a wingmate who had more talent than experience, like Jaen.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t anxious about the prospect of getting Leia Organa’s daughter vaped. Leia had been something like a second mother to Poe since before he had been old enough to officially join the Rebellion, and he respected her more than he did almost anyone else in the entire New Republic—maybe even more than he did the venerable Gial Ackbar. But Leia had told him to take Breha with him, even when he’d offered a chance to leave her out of this battle. She must have faith in her daughter’s skills too…or at least, faith in the Force to which both she and Breha both had such a strong connection.

Poe squeezed his trigger once, twice, three times; a few meters behind and just to the side of his X-Wing, Leeso did the same. The two TIEs chasing Breha and Jaen collapsed in fire and shredding metal. Poe checked his sensor board and saw that only three of the interceptors were left—no, make that two; another one blinked out as Rogue Three, Ito, flew through the debris cloud where it had been a moment before.

_ “ _All right, Rogues,” Poe said into his commlink, “that’s enough dallying with the appetizer. Let’s break space and go punch-out a Star Destroyer.”

_ “ _ Sir,” Leeso’s voice came over the comm immediately, “I thought you said the point of this engagement was _ not _to engage with the enemy.”

Poe grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “of course I did. But as long as we’re already in the neighborhood…”

Behind him, his BB-8 droid let out a mournful warble. Poe Dameron laughed.

Breha Organa-Solo checked that her deflector shields were angled to offer protection both fore and aft; it would have been dead embarrassing to be concentrating so much on the Star Destroyers ahead of her that she got vaped by a lucky shot from one of the tagalong TIEs still trailing them up from the devastated peace signing. It also would have been deadly, which was another good argument for evening her shields.

_ “ _How’s it looking back there, Twelve?” Breha asked.

_ “ _Port side stabilizer’s a little loose,” Jaen answered. He sounded tense. “As soon as we’re in vacuum I’ll have my astromech see if she can lock it down.”

_ “ _Good idea,” Breha replied, meaning it on both levels: one of the benefits of flying an X-Wing was that on-the-fly repair-work was sometimes possible thanks to the droids they carried along, but the friction drag of atmospheric flying could be extremely hard on an astromech’s delicate tools. They were specced for work in hard vacuum, designed not to freeze up or warp under the enormous pressures and freezing temperature of raw space—but the void was a very different environment than that of planetary atmospheres, especially when rocketing through those atmospheres at speeds this high. She was relieved that Jaen was canny enough to know better than to risk his droid on atmospheric repairs when they would soon be safely ensconced in vacuum instead; while the Twi’lek was a talented pilot—no one got into Rogue Squadron without being a talented pilot—he had less actual engagement experience than anyone else in the squadron, herself included. Plus, her twin brother had a massive crush on him. The least she could do was bring Bail’s boyfriend home alive. “Shout if there’s trouble,” she ordered.

_ “ _Roger, Eleven.”

Together the two pilots shot from the thin, wispy layer of stratosphere and into the cold of true vacuum. The interceptors trailing the squadron crossed a few seconds later and immediately jumped forward, their non-atmospheric speeds higher than an X-Wing’s. Breha gritted her teeth and debated swinging around to loop behind the TIEs and try to vape them—but she remembered Commander Dameron’s orders about engaging only when necessary.

She checked her shields one more time to make sure that her rear was protected from cheap potshots, then did her best to ignore the instincts screaming at her that letting an enemy sit on her tail was a terrible idea. _ They don’t matter, _ she told herself firmly. _ They aren’t the mission. They’re just a—a distraction. So don’t get distracted. Focus! _

Breha did, both on the battle ahead and on the Force pulsing around her. She could feel the distant echo of the carnage on the surface—the raw wound of betrayal and pain throbbing in the back of her mind like a toothache. She tuned it out, spreading her awareness ahead of her, toward the Star Destroyers and the mass of TIEs swarming around them.

She couldn’t help being chilled by the sight. It was one thing to joke about Rogue Squadron’s penchant for pulling off impossible missions on the ground; quite another to stare down four Imperial Star Destroyers, five smaller support ships, at least a dozen squadrons of various makes of TIE fighter, and one _ Executor _-class Super Star Destroyer.

Breha swallowed hard.

_ “ _Look at the size of that thing…”

_ “ _Cut the chatter Rogue Eleven,” Commander Dameron snapped. “Rogues, break by wing on my mark and go evasive. Break away or punch through—I’ll leave it up to your discretion. Don’t bunch up. This isn’t a mutual support situation. The more directions we go in, the better our odds of some of us getting through.” There was a long pause as the X-Wings raced forward toward the Destroyers. From their flight paths screening the ships, four squadrons of TIEs split away and dove down to meet them. The distance narrowed fast. They had almost halved it when Poe continued, “It’s been an honor flying with you all. Okay, mark!”

The formation of X-Wings split apart like a flock of flarion birds fleeing a blastail. Poe and Leeso flipped their ships into dizzying barrel rolls and curved straight for the center of the closest squadron. Breha and Jaen jerked their ships in a hard perpendicular turn and looped around for a low pass beneath the TIES. The other Rogues likewise broke by wing-pairs and either swooped wide or cut sharp straight toward the TIES. One pair of X-Wings angled to cross the starfighter screen between capital ships and flew directly into a turbolaser shot from one of the star destroyers, vaporizing instantly.

Breha felt their deaths through the Force and tightened her grip on her control yoke. This wasn’t her first dogfight but it was the first time she had faced odds anything like this, the first time the stakes of failure had been so high. Growing up in the waning days of the war with the Empire, Breha’s service as a Rogue had consisted mainly of peacekeeping duties and territorial squabbles--dangerous, sometimes deadly, but never with the fate of the whole New Republic resting on her wiry shoulders.

_ Was this how mom felt when she saw the Death Star? _ Breha wondered, and shook the thought away quickly. The middle of a dogfight was no place for woolgathering. She could talk to her mother about the early days of the Rebellion later--_if _she lived long enough.

“Okay Jaen, let’s vape some eyeballs and go fetch Uncle Wedge,” Breha told her wingman.

“Just as long as I don’t have to call the Commander of the First Fleet ‘uncle’ anything,” Jaen agreed, trying to joke through his nerves.

Breha grinned. “Uncle Admiral, maybe?”

“I think I’ll stick with Admiral Antilles if it’s all the same to you,” Jaen said primly, juking his X-Wing around and punching three bright laserblasts through the solar panels of the TIE bearing down on him. The round ship spun sideways, crashing into its wingman and obliterating them both in a ball of fire. “Some of us didn’t have our diapers changed by the greatest legends of the Rebellion, you know.”

“No?” Breha said in an innocent voice as she spun her X-Wing like a top and drilled a blisteringly fast series of shots through the cockpit ball of the TIE fighter shooting towards her. “Huh. Who else do you get to do diaper duty, then? Oh right--Wookiees!”

Jaen didn’t answer, unless a heavy sigh and a lekku twitch his wingmate couldn’t see counted as an answer. Instead he focused on the battle, his dark blue face greenish with nerves and his pink lips tight and thin with strain. Breha’s bantering had had the desired effect of stopping his hands from shaking on their instruments, but he was still too tense to keep up with their usual jokes.

Breha fell silent in concentration as well, and for several impossibly long seconds the only sounds were the terse warnings and commands of their squadronmates, the whine of engines, and the wail of astromechs as the twelve--now ten, then nine, then seven--X-Wings of Rogue Squadron fought an unwinnable battle in the shadow of five fearsome star destroyers.


	6. Chapter 6

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The _Millennium Falcon _shuddered as a turbolaser blast grazed its upper shield. “Oh my!” C-3PO exclaimed as the sudden wobble, too abrupt for the artificial gravity to compensate for properly, threw him sideways. He clattered into the wall of the ship’s narrow hallway, then repeated the cry--with slightly more emphasis--a second time as another blast flung him back the other way.

Past the flailing droid, three of the Organa-Solo family and Chewbacca--family himself, although taller and hairier than any of the human Organa-Solos would ever be--stared tensely through the viewports as Han and Chewie guided the saucer-shaped craft in a dizzying sequence of evasive maneuvers.

Han--grayer, older, and more lined, but as energetic as ever--kept up a steady stream of complaints and curses as his hands danced across the cockpit instruments. Chewbacca provided counterpoint both in maneuvering technique and in throaty growls and bellows.

_ “ _I know, I know, I can see it!” Han shouted, nodding at a throbbing red light on the ship’s display board. “What do you think I’m trying to do? Yeah? Well if you don’t like it, pal, you can walk home!”

Neither Leia nor Bail reacted to the shouting or the roaring, although their responses couldn’t have been more different: Bail, his face pale and his expression the forced-calm of a young Jedi trying to maintain their poise under stress, sat strapped securely into the seat behind Chewbacca, his hands folded in his lap and his lips pressed tight together. Leia was ostensibly sitting in the navigator’s chair behind Han, but in reality she was more resting the back of her thighs against it for stability as she stood, hands tight on the arm and headrest of the pilot’s chair, and shouted her own advice and observations.

_ “ _ I thought the point was to _ avoid _the Imperial ships. You’ve got us going right toward them!”

_ “ _It’s not like they’ve set up a blockade,” Han retorted. “Flying straight up their nose tends to disorient most Imperials--and besides, I figured they’d be too busy getting vaped by Rogue Squadron to care about some rattletrap freighter!”

_ “ _This bucket hasn’t been a discreet smuggling vessel in over thirty years,” Leia snapped back. Chewbacca roared his approval--of her statement, or of Han’s, only the Wookiee himself could say. “You’re flying one of the most famous, recognizable ships in the galaxy--”

_ “ _ I’ve got a fake identity transponder on,” Han protested. “They shouldn’t have any idea who we--oh.” He paused to look back and catch his son’s eye, then nodded at a bank of switches over Bail’s head. Bail obediently reached up and flicked two of the switches, a small and rueful smile on his face as he returned to his pose of deliberate calm. “Anyway, _ now _I have a fake identity transponder on,” Han continued, as if there had been no interruption.

Leia rolled her eyes but there was no malice in the gesture. “A YT-1300 blasting away from Coruscant minutes after an underhanded Imperial attack on the peace signing?” she said. “They’d have figured us for the _ Falcon _ even if you _ had _been using one of your fake IDs.”

Han muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “It’s not my fault.”

Chewie roared a warning just as another bank of lights started blinking on the dashboard.

_ “ _We’re about to lose the fore deflector,” Han announced.

_ “ _Time for battle stations, then?” Leia asked. She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and headed for the cockpit door, pausing barely a second to squeeze her husband’s shoulder on her way. “Bail, with me.”

Bail hurried to unstrap himself and follow his mother. “Remember the point is to get _ away_, not to pull one over on the Imperials, dad,” he said blandly.

_ “ _Don’t tell your old man how to fly,” Han retorted. “Go on, listen to your mother!”

Bail left, dodging around Threepio as the hapless protocol droid finally made his way against the bucking, spinning turbulence to the cockpit. “Oh my!” Threepio exclaimed quietly, half-falling into the seat behind Chewbacca as another blast rocked the ship. “We seem to be in something of a situation, Captain Solo!”

_ “ _ Are we?” Han spat. “I hadn’t noticed.” He raised his voice in a bellow aimed toward the center of the ship. “_Leia--?” _

_ “ _ Keep your pants on, flyboy,” came the static-coated reply from the ship’s internal comm. A moment later bright red laser blasts tore from the _ Falcon’ _s topside guns, followed a few seconds later by matching blasts from the underside guns.

Han muttered again, this time something that was half-compliment and half-insult, as a TIE fighter exploded in a furious ball of light two meters in front of the cockpit viewport. He swung the ship in a hard spin that earned a shrill cry of dismay from C-3PO and an approving roar from Chewbacca.

The Wookiee dropped his voice to something approximating conversational volume--if said conversation was taking place in the middle of a crowded club or a battlefield’s trenches, perhaps--and barked a series of inquiring, cautionary interrogatives.

Han shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said grimly. Suddenly he looked old and tired, his gray hair standing out starkly against the backdrop of the blinking diodes and control switches of the cramped cockpit. “Here, take over while I start the hyperspace calculations. It’s too hot to hang around here for long.”

Chewie warbled a fervent agreement and swung the _ Falcon _in a twisty loop to throw off Imperial gunners. Turbolaser blasts went wide around the ship, although one struck close enough to make the lights flicker.

_ “ _Han--!” Leia snapped from her gunner’s station.

_ “ _ Working on it, sweetheart!” Han shouted back, leaning back out of his chair to reach the navigator’s station. It was funny how, even on those rare occasions when the _Millennium Falcon _had the recommended four-being crew to fly it, he still ended up pulling double-duty more often than not. He punched at the navicomputer’s buttons, trying to goad it to calculate faster from sheer force of will. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, his eyes flicking back and forth between the computer and the cockpit’s transparisteel viewport.

TIEs were starting to swarm them in earnest now and Chewie was having a hard time keeping the ship on its path away from the planet; he kept having to loop and double-back to avoid the other ships, although Leia and Bail were shooting them as fast as they could. Already Han had seen four ships explode, and another had gone spinning-off in a semi-controlled spiral away from the battle.

The problem was that there were just too many of them, and too few of the people on Han’s side. He caught the occasional glimpse of an X-Wing here or there, most of them even more overwhelmed by the deluge of TIEs than was the _ Falcon _ , and he tried not to think about his daughter up there in one of those ships. Despite all of his upgrades, Han knew--although he would never admit it out loud to another being--that the _Millennium Falcon _was a freighter, not a snubfighter. She did a remarkable job of impersonating the later, but in a battle like this his ship was too far out of its element. He had to get out of here before he got vaped and took his wife, son, and best friend with him...but if he thought about how leaving meant leaving his daughter behind to keep fighting without him, he’d never be able to make himself engage the hyperdrive.

An X-Wing scoured by the hot streaks of near-misses shot past the viewport in pursuit of three TIEs, its lasers blazing fiery tracks across Han’s vision. There was no way for him to know who was piloting the narrow snubfighter but he whispered, “Watch yourself, Rey,” anyway.

Another turbolaser blast struck the ship full-on and the _ Falcon _ dropped several relative meters under the punch of the blow. The lights all went out, the engines died, the shields cut off; for a moment, the ship was entirely helpless. Another good blast would finish them--but then with a whine, the _ Falcon _came back to life.

Han resumed breathing. “That’s it girl,” he murmured, “just a little bit more…” He leaned back to check the status of the navicomputer and swore. That blast had wiped the calculation in progress and now he needed to start over from the beginning.

_ “ _Captain Solo,” Threepio said prissily from his comfortable seat behind Chewie, “I do believe that that power fluctuation interrupted the navicomputer’s processing. You will have to reinitialize the calculation before we can make the jump to lightspeed--”

_ “ _Tell me something I don’t know!” Han snapped at the droid.

Threepio’s glowing eyes flickered, giving the droid an odd impression of a man blinking thoughtfully. Then he said, “The glottal stop is an anthropologically inexplicable addition to the Togrutian--”

“THREEPIO!” Han bellowed. The droid subsided, muttering indignantly about the bewildering rudeness of sentients who asked questions when they didn’t actually want answers. One of the insistent lights blinking on the ship’s dash started blinking more insistently, joined by a shrill alarm and Leia’s warning shout of, “HAN!” from the gunner’s station. 

Chewbacca’s roar dwarfed all other sounds, even the shriek of the alarm, as he twisted the pilot’s yoke so sharply that Han was flung from his seat. For a moment, everything was lit with a sickly green glow. Stumbling forward, Han caught his friend’s hairy arm and hung on for balance, shouting a complaint for the bad flying--but he fell silent at Chewbacca’s bark. The Wookiee jerked his chin toward the cockpit’s forward viewport and Han’s eyes went wide.

“Sithspit,” he swore in a whisper.

The Super Star Destroyer had turned out of line with the other ships and was now facing the _ Falcon _. The TIEs around them were scattering to get away from the aging freighter as quickly as their ion engines would carry them but it wasn’t quite fast enough: another massive beam of light lanced out from the Super Star Destroyer, vaporizing one of the TIEs unlucky enough to be caught in its area of effect.

Chewbacca pulled the _ Falcon _ into a dive sharp enough to make the ship’s joints and seams scream and pop, but the massive turbolaser blast passed narrowly overhead--close enough to make the lights flicker and what was left of the shields evaporate and to make every hair in the cockpit, from the gray mop on top of Han’s head to the brown fur that covered every inch of Chewbacca’s body, stand on end.

The alarms resumed screaming but it seemed to be coming from a distance now, muffled by the oppressive presence of the Super Star Destroyer.

“We have to get out of here,” Han said. He was sweating and his voice sounded uncharacteristically meek. “Chewie, point us out and get ready to engage the hyperdrive.” He turned back to the navicomputer and began pressing buttons frantically. “Just need a minute to override the safeties…”

“Captain Solo!” Threepio protested. “The navicomputer hasn’t had time to calculate--”

“We don’t have time,” Han snapped back, pounding a fist on the hull to overcome a sticky button’s reluctance.

“But sir!” Threepio exclaimed. “Without precise calculations, we could fly right through a star or--”

“I know!” Han lunged for the pilot’s seat again, one hand reaching for the piloting controls. “Punch it, Chewie!”

Another massive laserblast lanced out from the Super Star Destroyer but the _ Millennium Falcon _ had already lurched forward, for a moment stretching out and moving impossibly fast before it blinked out of realspace. The immense bolt of green light shot through the empty space where the ship had been a moment before, dazzling the eyes of any watching pilots.


	7. Chapter 7

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

As starships and proton torpedoes exploded all around, Rogues Eleven and Twelve stuck tight on one another’s s-foils despite the irregular stream of sparks and smoke that poured from the port fuselage of the trailing ship. The white and green BB-8 unit that labored to repair the damaged stabilizer screeched and warbled unhappily as her pilot twirled their X-Wing in a tight spiral. Green lasers flashed past.

“We’re almost through,” Jaen reassured his astromech, “just hold it together.”

Breha squeezed the trigger, unleashing a torrent of hot red lasers. Her X-Wing shuddered under the impact of the TIE Interceptor’s glancing shots as the two ships screamed toward each other (literally, in the case of the TIE) across the battlefield. Sweat stung Breha’s eyes but she didn’t dare take her hands from the controls to wipe it away.

Her shots finally churned their way through the Interceptor’s hull and the dark ship exploded in a burst of superheated gas bright enough to dazzle Breha’s eyes. She plowed through the center of the blaze--being too close now to turn aside--and emerged, slightly scorched, with her astromech screaming.

“That got him!” a cheerful voice exclaimed. “Good shooting, Elev--” A burst of static devoured the rest of Rogue Six’s words as his X-Wing exploded even more spectacularly than the Interceptor. Two TIEs came tearing through the fiery space where he had been, their lasers cycling fast.

Breha swore and rolled her ship away in the nick of time. The potshot she took on the way went wide, glancing off the omnipresent backdrop of the Super Star Destroyer’s shields.

“Rogues, report!” Commander Dameron’s voice cut-off Breha’s muttered curses. “Who’s left?”

“Rogue Nine here, commander! I’ve got Four with me, her comms are out and we’ve both lost our wings--”

“Rogue Five still here, sir, but my hyperdrive is toast. Got some nasty fuel spill-over into my sublights, too big for the droid to fix. I’m not going anywhere in this tub, sir.”

“Head planetside then, Five,” Poe ordered, absently dropping his X-Wing into a barrel roll to avoid a swath of turbolaser fire from one of the capital ships. His wingmate followed without comment, sticking so close to his stern that the nose of her X-Wing reddened in the thruster wash. “Take your wing with you, he can--”

“Six is dead, sir.” Rogue Five’s voice rasps harshly with the effort of maintaining control. “And I’m not running away.”

“You’re no good to us without a hyperdrive, Five--”

“I can do plenty of damage up here on sublights, sir.”

“Kriffing he--_fine_. Form-up with--”

“Negative, sir,” Five interrupted again. “With the way these drives are overheating, I’m a floating thermal detonator. Better if none of you get too close, sir.”

“Then throttle back and head dirtside, dammit,” Poe said briskly, seemingly unbothered by the tight spin he had thrown his X-Wing into. Leeso mirrored his actions a ship-length behind, the two of them cleaving through a pair of TIEs who scattered like startled birds. Jaen snapped off a quick shot that burned a hole through one solar array as their ships passed but the damage was only superficial; the TIE made one of those impossibly-quick turns that no X-Wing pilot could replicate and flipped over, coming back to return the favor, and flew directly into Breha’s lasers. The Imperial snubfighter spun away, one side on fire.

Breha spared a glance for the rest of the squadron and was in time to hear Five say, “Sorry sir.” His voice was suddenly bright and cheery. “Looks like there’s something wrong with my comm, too. You’re not coming through clearly. Did you say, take as many of the bastards with you as you can?”

“Five, I order you to--”

But whatever Commander Dameron was going to say next, Five would never know. He dove directly for a squadron of Interceptors. The TIEs scattered like a still pool under assault from a boulder, but enough of them fired as they turned that the X-Wing was quickly reduced to slag. Without telemetry from the astromech there was no way to know whether the damaged engines had overheated or whether one of the TIEs’ shots had struck something sensitive, but suddenly the beleaguered fighter went up in a blast like a miniature nova. At least a half-dozen TIEs went with it, if not more.

There was no time to mourn; Nine’s husky voice came over the comm, saying, “Commander, I think Four is following his lead. It looks like she’s setting up for a final run on the bridge of that Destroyer.”

“Negative!” Poe cried. “Negative, Four, do you hear me? Do you--”

But whether Four heard or not, she didn’t listen; trailing smoke from one engine and with nothing but a crater where her astromech used to be, her muted X-Wing careened in a sharp arc toward the portmost Star Destroyer. TIEs scrambled after her, recognizing the suicidal intent; the ship’s gunners, seeing the same danger, concentrated their fire along Four’s path, inadvertently vaping a number of their own TIEs in their desperate attempt to destroy the New Republic snubfighter before it reached their bridge.

They succeeded.

Four’s ship blew apart mere meters from the transparisteel viewport. Bits of burning X-Wing clattered against the hull, leaving scorch marks and rents in the heavy armor, but not penetrating deep enough to do more than cosmetic damage.

Breha flew mechanically, unaware of the tears trickling out beneath her helmet’s visor.

Poe was swearing a blue streak. “Has anyone made it out yet?” he interrupted himself to ask. 

“Three might have--” Nine began, but was interrupted by a harsh negative from Two.

“He didn’t. I saw it.”

“Sithspit,” Poe cursed. “Come on, people, the New Republic is depending on us. We have to get word to the fleet.” The commander sounded more desperate than Breha had ever heard him, almost panicky.

“For kriff’s sake, we’re Rogue Squadron. If anyone can do this…”

Poe’s voice trailed away. They didn’t need him to finish the statement; if anyone _ could _do this, it was the Rogues. The problem was, against odds like this, maybe no one could.

“No,” Breha said softly, more to herself than anyone else. “No, they don’t win that easily. Come on, Twelve.” She banked hard to port, exposing her belly to the turbolasers of the Star Destroyer below but only for an instant; at top speed she blew along the length of the long capital ship so quickly the gunners couldn’t react fast enough to track her with their sights. Jaen stuck tight on her tail.

“I see our exit route,” Breha shouted into the comm, barreling away from the Star Destroyer and toward the knot of support ships clustered behind it. “Right through those shuttles--”

“Fly between them?” Jaen yelped. “Are you crazy?”

“As a Rogue!” Breha retorted, laughing. “Come on, we’ll shake half these TIEs when they bank-off to avoid crashing into their buddies. Like an Ackbar Slash with collisions instead of crossfire. It’s genius.”

“Provided we don’t end up smeared on someone’s viewport too,” Jaen muttered.

Breha ignored him. “Start calculating our hypserspace route,” she ordered her own astromech. “We’ll jump as soon as we get through.” The droid warbled an affirmative and one of the many screens on Breha’s cockpit began to flicker and glow as numbers scrolled past too fast to read.

The two X-Wings bobbed and juked their way through the crowded cluster of shuttles and dreadnoughts and other assorted support vehicles. Breha noticed several blocky troop transport ships and grimaced at the thought of regiments of stormtroopers marching up Coruscant’s wide lanes. She pushed the image away; now was no time to let herself get distracted. A moment’s inattention here would leave her snubfigher as nothing but a rapidly-cooling ball of gas and debris, and her with it. 

The fact that whatever Imperial ship she hit would also likewise be vaporized, or at least severely crippled, by the collision was small consolation.

The explosions as various TIE fighters--hampered by their blockier profiles and wide solar wings, as well as by their pilots’ no doubt inferior flying abilities--failed to avoid those collisions themselves in their attempts to pursue the two fleeing X-Wings was much more encouraging, although it still wouldn’t do the New Republic any good if at least one Rogue couldn’t manage to get away from this fight to summon help.

“It’s working!” Jaen exclaimed as the crowded space-lanes in front of them began to open up into empty void. “It’s actually working!”

“Don’t get cocky,” Breha scolded her wingmate. “More room to fly in just means they have more room to shoot us.”

“Copy, Eleven,” Jaen grumbled. He juked his snubfighter to port in time to avoid a barrage of turbolaser fire from one of the passing ships. A moment later he said, “Calculations finalizing. Ready to jump in twenty.”

Breha nodded an affirmative and squeezed the trigger as her target screen locked on a troop transport. Her last two proton torpedoes flashed out in a streak of blue and turned the blocky transport ship into an explosion large enough to rattle her X-Wing. The feeling of all those lives snuffed-out reverberated through the Force with even more intensity, making Breha shiver, but she gritted her teeth and let the burst of anguish pour through her like water through a sieve. _ It’s for the greater good_, she told her wailing heart. The fewer stormtroopers who lived to make it to the surface, the fewer Coruscanti citizens who would die at their hands.

The massive explosion had the added benefit of knocking the last two TIEs chasing them out of the battle: one catching a piece of debris through his viewport that added his ship to the conflagration and the other spiraling into an evasive barrel roll that ended when her ship collided with the engines of a _ Lambda_-shuttle that had gotten a little too close to the action.

“Nice shot!” Jaen crowed, and Breha swallowed hard.

She resisted the urge to snarl at him--Jaen had no more connection to the Force than did Breha’s father, or the rest of their squadronmates; he couldn’t feel the Imperials die--and said instead, “Break to point 0.2 and lock in final coordin--_wait--! _”

A premonition in the Force that had nothing to do with her own immediate danger gripped Breha and she raked her eyes across the battle readout in front of her. Something was wrong…

“Eleven? What is it?”

Jaen’s voice penetrated her fog and Breha shook her head.

“It’s nothing,” she lied. “Get ready to jump.”

Jaen reached forward to flick the switches that would close his s-foils and switch his engines from sublight to hyperdrive. A few meters away, Breha started to do the same and hesitated. “Did you see if any of the others made it yet?” Jaen was asking.

“No idea,” Breha replied, distracted. She was still staring at the readout, searching for the root of her concern. There was something...over _ there_...

“Breha!” Jaen’s shout barely made her twitch. “What’s wrong? Are your s-foils damaged?”

“No,” Breha said, shaking her head again. Her ship was starting to pull away from Jaen’s almost without her needing to steer it. “No, I’m fine. I just have something to take care of first.”

“What are you talking--?”

“Make the jump. I’ll be right behind you.” Breha pulled on her piloting yoke, looping her X-Wing into a long curve back toward the battle.

“Wait, I’ll come with--”

“No!” Breha barked. “That’s an order. Get word to the fleet.”

“Where are you going?”

“To stop the commander from doing something stupid.”

“Breha--!”

“Go, ensign!” Breha shouted. A moment later, Jaen’s ship elongated and winked-out. Breha didn’t see it; she was already spinning her X-Wing in a tight, rolling dive toward the malevolent wedge of the enormous Super Star Destroyer.


	8. Chapter 8

**A FEW PARSECS FROM CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Han’s hand slapped down on the hyperdrive levers and yanked them back, jolting the ship back into realspace. The swirl of hyperspace travel through the viewport dissolved abruptly into ordinary starfield once more although the alarms did not stop ringing.

“--too close to a supernova!” See-Threepio was wailing.

“Shut-up!” Han snarled. “Chewie, damage report?”

The Wookiee’s paws were already dancing across the console and he rumbled a complicated string of growls and yips that had Han nodding, grim-faced and sober. Chewbacca sounded unhappy but subdued; it was too late to change what had happened now and he knew that risky as Han’s choice to jump without calculations had been, they hadn’t had much alternative.

Leia as yet knew no such thing, nor was she aware of the precise circumstances under which they had jumped to hyperspace--only that the journey had been _ too short_. “Don’t tell me the hyperdrive is broken again?” she said as she hurried in, voice raised to be heard over the shrilling alarms.

“It’s worse than that,” Han muttered, leaning over the damage display. “Looks like we’ve got a cascade-burn starting in the engine room...Bail!” he shouted unnecessarily, pressing the intercom button and holding it down with white knuckles. “The engine’s on fire, go put it out!”

“On my way,” came Bail’s measured response through the cockpit speaker; he had flown on the _ Millennium Falcon _ too often to be nonplussed by comments like “the engine’s on fire.”

Leia, somehow, retained her ability to be surprised--or maybe she simply derived pleasure from preserving the fiction of shock and the opportunities thus offered for her and her husband to snipe at one another. “The engine’s on fire?” she repeated. “Han--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Han said. Chewbacca _ wuffed _ his disagreement but quietly, shaking his head more to himself than at Han; he, too, was no newcomer to the realities of life on the _ Falcon_.

“Mistress Leia!” Threepio cried, golden arms waving in distress, “Mistress Leia! This madman must be removed from command of the ship for all our safety!” Leia was already shaking her head, moving forward to lean over her husband’s shoulder and inspect the damage reports for herself, Threepio’s melodramatic lamentations another reality of life that she had long ago learned to dismiss--but then the fussy protocol droid said, “Engaging the hyperdrive without navigational coordinates is a clear violation of sane spaceflight procedure and--”

Leia’s head whipped around so fast her hairbuns wobbled. She stared at her husband. “A blind hyperspace jump?” It came out as more accusation than question, easily outdoing the alarms. “You put us into a blind hyperspace jump?”

“For a second,” Han admitted defensively. “We had to get out of there before that Super Star Destroyer turned us all into free-floating atoms, and the navicomputer--”

Chewbacca roared, waving one shaggy hand in the general direction of the now-blank viewports.

“A second of blind travel in hyperspace translates to hundreds of parsecs!” Leia shot back. “We could have died--”

“And if we’d hung around long enough for the navicomputer to finish calculating a jump, we would have!”

Han and Leia glowered at each other, two sets of brown eyes narrowed and pale cheeks red. She planted her fists on her hips; he crossed his arms over his chest. In the co-pilot’s seat, Chewbacca continued to flip switches and check read-outs. As he twisted a blinking dial the piercing alarm finally shut-off, leaving everyone’s ears ringing in the sudden silence.

Bail walked into the cockpit looking calm, although his brown hair was dishevelled and there was a smudge of soot across one cheek and in several places on his brown robes. “The fire’s out,” he said mildly. “What did dad do now?”

“Only saved all our skins,” Han said tartly. “You’re welcome.”

“Only risked all our lives with a truly idiotic, brainless--”

Chewbacca’s rumbling growl cut-off the argument.

Leia took a deep breath. “You’re right, Chewie,” she said, smoothing her hair back primly. “We can finish this later, after we’ve contacted the fleet.” She turned toward the navicomputer and paused to eye her husband. “Provided your father doesn’t mind if we make our next jump _ after _ we have the coordinates plotted?” she asked sweetly.

“Be my guest,” said Han in a voice that dripped with sarcastic politeness in equal measure to that of his wife and sweeping his arm toward the navicomputer in a low bow.

Bail stepped over behind Threepio’s chair and folded his hands in front of him, the patient stance doing nothing to conceal the way he rolled his eyes at his parents’ antics as Han poked at the controls in front of him and Leia pressed buttons on the navicomputer. Her lofty expression faded into a frown and her button-pushing became sharper, more staccato. Eventually she swore.

“It’s scrambled,” Leia announced. “Even Coruscant isn’t coming up right.”

“It lost triple zero?” Bail said, raising his eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”

“Where did you pick up military slang like--never mind,” Leia said, shaking her head. “Jaen, of course.”

“Syal, actually,” Bail corrected, moving forward so he could look over his mother’s shoulder. “But that’s not really relevant to...uh-oh.”

Leia nodded. “Uh-oh indeed,” she said. She looked up and met Han’s eyes as he leaned back around his seat to watch. “Threepio, see if you can make sense out of this.” Leia waved the droid forward.

She didn’t look particularly hopeful as she moved herself and Bail aside so the droid could shuffle over to the navicompuer and plug in. Threepio’s yellow eyes flickered several times as his processor interfaced with the ship’s computer brains, then he looked up and shook his head. “I’m not sure if it was feedback from the turbolaser strike that interrupted the initial calculations, or a result of Captain Solo’s ill-advised unplotted hypserpace jump, but this navicomputer’s data has been irrevocably corrupted.”

Han and Chewie exchanged a look. “We’re in trouble,” Han muttered. Chewbacca barked.

“This probably isn’t a good time to mention that the hyperdrive got a little fried before I could get the fire out, is it?” Bail said. “I don’t think we’re going to get more than one or two jumps out of it before it shatters.”

“Replacement navigational data could be downloaded from the Holonet,” Threepio continued primly, “but our long-range communications don’t seem to be functioning.”

Chewbacca _ wuffed _an explanation, shoulders slumping.

“What do you mean, _ gone?” _ Leia asked, eyes widening. “The whole dish? But how--”

“When the Super Star Destroyer shot at us, I bet,” Bail suggested. He looked down at his mother, frowning. “That’s not something we can jury-rig back together.”

“We’re in trouble,” Han repeated.


	9. Chapter 9

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

When the stout and stalwart Ito turned her smoking, sparking X-Wing toward the bridge of the nearest Star Destroyer and crashed through the transparisteel viewport in a more successful reprise of Rogue Four’s last moments, Poe let out an oath so foul it made BB-8 whistle. Ito had been a Rogue even longer than him and her loss felt like the end of an era--and maybe it was, Poe thought dismally. Maybe this battle would be Rogue Squadron’s nightswan song--but if this was to be their end, then it would be a battle the Empire would never forget, Poe vowed.

He turned his X-Wing back toward the now-burning Star Destroyer, Leeso tucked in tight on his tail without a word of complaint or question despite the fact that he was flouting his own orders to head straight for hyperspace and not look back.

He only realized it was a mistake after seven vaped TIEs and too many close calls to count. Swearing floridly he drew his attention back to the flashing readouts and screens of his cockpit, and the shrill beeping of his BB-8 astromech droid, who was unleashing a lecture that, despite consisting solely of beeps and trills and whistles, would have done Leia Organa-Solo proud.

“I know, I know!” Poe snapped back, half-annoyed and half-apologetic. “Dammit, someone has to have made it out…”

“Eleven and Twelve might have, sir.” Leeso’s voice was as rough and cold as ever, but her words filled Poe with a brimming warmth. “I caught sight of them near the edge of the engagement a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah?” he said. He found that somehow despite everything, he was grinning. He could hardly have hoped for a better outcome--well, all right, he _ had _ hoped for a better outcome, but if only one pair of Rogues was going to make it out of this furball alive, he couldn’t think of anyone he would rather it be than the pair that included Leia’s daughter. 

“Eleven here, sir, sorry.” Breha’s voice--tense, breathless, strained--dashed his hopes as efficiently as a bucket of ice water. He watched her X-Wing tearing its way through the seemingly endless swarm of TIEs and felt his stomach sinking into his stupid shiny dress boots. Then she said, “Twelve made it, though.” She hesitated, thinking about the damage his ship had taken, then added in a softer voice, “I’m sure he did.”

Poe let out his breath in a rush. “Okay,” he said, trying to smile again. At least the word would reach the fleet...and if he died here, he would never need to face Leia and explain how he had let her daughter get vaped on his watch. “Well, let’s see if we can go for a little redundancy. Eleven, Two, I want you to pair-up and punch your way back planetside. They won’t expect that.” Poe juked and jinked and cycled his lasers as he spoke, multitasking with the grace of a lifetime’s worth of experience; the green laserblastes flashing past his cockpit barely made him blink. “Then you can slingshot around the other side and make for hyperspace from there. It’s the long way around,” he added with something approaching his usual humor, “but better late than never.”

“And where will you be, sir?” Leeso asked coolly, her own laser drilling a neat hole through the cockpit of a hapless TIE that strayed across her firing arc. 

With only three X-Wings left--Poe hadn’t seen what had happened to Nine, but he had heard the scream--the TIEs were clustering so badly that they got in each other’s way more often than they got a clean shot on the Rogues. That wasn’t much comfort, since even a sloppy shot could kill and the sheer volume of green lasers currently filling the skies over Coruscant were overwhelming enough that they would get lucky eventually, but Poe would scrape whatever scraps of hope he could from the dregs the galaxy was offering today. _ The turbolasers have stopped too_, he told himself with forced cheer, refusing to allow his brain to entertain the follow-up thought that the big guns had powered-down only because there was no reason for overkill like that when there were a good hundred TIEs out here for for each X-Wing.

“I’ll be shooting for deep space from here,” Poe explained to his wingmate. His tone was light; the grip of his hands on his control yoke was tight. “I should be able to draw most of them after me; I’ll be a higher priority target than two ships retreating dirtside. If one of you could get your astromech to make some smoke or sparks to sell the illusion of damage…”

“Sir, you are aware that there are approximately three-hundred and seventy TIEs currently in Coruscant airspace?” Leeso asked.

Poe almost squirmed and turned the discomfort into a quick roll that let him snap-off a shot that turned a luckless TIE fighter into a ball of superheated gas and flame. “I didn’t do a headcount, but yeah,” he admitted.

“Then, sir, even if you draw-off seventy percent of them, there will still be an overwhelming number left to follow the lieutenant and myself--”

“All right, all right, so it’s a crappy plan,” Poe interrupted. “Do you have a better one?”

“Yes,” said Leeso, shocking him. “The odds of success are miniscule, though.”

“Perfect,” said Poe, diving so close between a pair of TIEs that his upper starboard s-foil scraped a deep gouge in one solar array. “Let’s hear it.”

“I jump to hyperspace right here. The two of you line-up exactly behind me and each follow a second later.”

“That’s suicide!” Breha yelped before she could stop herself.

“Only for the first ship,” Leeso said coolly. “Maybe the second. My passage may clear the way enough to allow--”

“All right,” said Poe. “But I’ll go first. I’m in command.”

“Sir--”

“That’s an order, Two,” Poe snarled.

Silence--except for the constant roar of the battle swirling around them--held for a long moment before it was broken by BB-8’s soft, mournful trill. For once, Poe ignored his loyal droid.

“As you wish, sir,” Leeso growled.

“Commander…” Breha whispered; Poe ignored her, too.

“This is going to be tricky to line-up,” he warned them both. “Especially without getting vaped.” His mind raced, moving through the possibilities as quickly as his ship blazed through vacuum. He smiled. “Time for some good old fashioned TRD, I think.”

Leeso groaned but Breha gave an eager whoop. She was the daughter of heroes of the First Death Star; much as the phrase “Trench Run Disease” gave Imperials nightmares, for her it had been the stuff of bedtime stories and childhood games. Poe felt a little better; the odds of Rogue Eleven surviving this crazy scheme were slim, but if it failed at least she would die with a smile on her face.

“All right,” said Poe, “follow me on my mark. Three...two...one...MARK!”

In almost perfect unison the three X-Wings banked away from the cloud of TIEs and dove for the surface of the Super Star Destroyer. Green light strafed around them and Poe forced himself not to look at the readouts on the strength of his deflector shields; after a dogfight like this they had to be nearly depleted despite his and BB-8’s best efforts at balancing and cycling them. One lucky hit, and he’d be blown to smithereens like the rest of his squadron. Leeso and Breha were sure to be in similar straights. Their only chance was to get low fast, ducking _ under _the Super Star Destroyer’s deflector shields, where the pursuing TIEs would hesitate about letting too many wild shots gouge divots in that pristine pale gray surface.

That there would be pursuit Poe did not doubt; while TRD was actually relatively ineffective on capital ships, Imperials had an almost pathological fear of little snubfighters getting too close to their hulls--a sort of shared cultural reaction to the loss of two monolithic battlestations to the predations of “insignificant” little snubfighters.

Poe grinned, knowing that he had to be making a lot of Imps sweat right now.

Breha felt laughter bubbling up in her throat and swallowed it down hurriedly; the last thing she wanted was for either of her superior officers to hear her having hysterics right now--and she wasn’t; it was just a great deal of emotional upheaval in a short space of time: losing most of her comrades, watching a peace treaty turn into an attack in an eyeblink, worrying about her mother and brother and father, wondering if Jaen would make it to the fleet with his damaged fighter...and now, flying down the belly of a Super Star Destroyer like she was Uncle Luke going after the First Death Star.

It was tricky, terrain-following flying and she had to concentrate on what she was doing: sticking close enough to the hull to be under the deflector shield, but alert enough to bob up and weave around any of the myriad of protrusions that dotted a hull that only looked sleek from a distance--including turbolaser emplacements; while most gunners wouldn’t risk hitting their own ship by trying to target a small, evasive craft like an X-Wing that was flying so close to its durasteel plates, a particularly enterprising or reckless gunner might well take a chance on those times when Breha or one of the others had to rise a little to crest some inconvenient stack of pipes or cowling. And then there were the TIEs behind them. While the amount of fire being directed toward her and the other Rogues had slackened it had not tapered off completely. A few stray shots from a tiny snubfighter wouldn’t be crippling to a ship this large and the TIEs chasing them continued to shoot whenever they thought they had a lock on a target.

It meant that in addition to delicate terrain following flying, Breha also had to maintain a constant erratic pattern of evasive maneuvers--made even trickier by the fact that the TIEs could see said terrain in front of her too, and thus knew when she would need to rise or sideslip to avoid an obstacle. It should have been the most harrowing, horrifying flight of Breha’s life--but it wasn’t.

Somehow she felt completely at peace, as though her body and ship had merged into one and the whole galaxy was whispering in her ear, telling her when to twist and turn and roll. She had to fight the mad urge to close her eyes, as relaxed as though she were sleeping--or meditating. She felt like she was back at the Jedi Training Academy with Uncle Luke’s voice in her ear or the soft chords of Tionne’s double viol washing over her.

The calm snapped abruptly as Commander Dameron’s voice announced, “All right BB-8, transmit the calculations. Two, Eleven, get ready to break up relative perpendicular on my mark. Match velocity and follow me _ exactly_. Eleven, you get in tight behind Two and follow her. We jump at one second intervals, starting with me and ending with Eleven. Copy?”

“Copy, Leader,” Leeso said automatically.

Breha had to swallow before she could force herself to say, “I copy, One.”

“Then may the Force be with us,” said Poe. “Three...two...one...MARK!”

The three X-Wings shot upright in a perfect line, Poe’s ship in the lead and Breha’s following last. As they left the relative safety of the Super Star Destroyer’s hull, TIE fighters swarmed in around them. A flurry of green laserblasts unleashed in a nearly blinding cloud. Breha’s ship shuddered under the impact of what felt like a dozen glancing blows and she gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to roll away from the line of fire.

“Close s-foils!” Poe ordered, and all three ships snapped theirs shut in preparation for the jump to hyperspace. “Jumping in three, two--Sithspit!”

Poe’s X-Wing gave a strange, wobbling jerk and lurched almost to a dead stop in midair. Leeso cut her ship into an almost ninety-degree turn, tight as a TIE, shooting out away from Poe’s stricken snubfigher; Breha, less experienced, didn’t realize what was happening until the tractor beam snagged her ship, too.

Helpless, she yanked futilely on her control yoke as she watched Leeso’s X-Wing disappear into a knot of TIE fighters. The darker ships swarmed and spiraled around the lone X-Wing like insects dragging a feast into their hive. In only seconds, every trace of Rogue Two’s ship had vanished from view. Breha tried to comfort herself with the fact that she had seen no explosion, but she knew that not every snubfighter’s life ended so vividly--and furthermore the number of TIEs between her and Leeso acted as a near-impenetrable screen. There were so many of the little round ships roiling and twisting in the vacuum between them that Breha wasn’t sure she would have seen an explosion even if one had occurred.

“Two!” Poe bellowed into the comm unit. “Rogue Two, report! Leeso?”

There was no answer.

A cold, hollow certainty settled over Breha like a slow swell of ice-cold water. She knew, as surely as if she had read it in plain Basic scrolling across the readouts in front of her, that she couldn’t break the tractor beam’s lock. It didn’t matter how hard she fought, she was _ caught… _but there were alternatives to fighting.

With a deep, heavy breath, Breha lifted her hands away from the piloting yoke. “They’ve got us, Shaker,” she announced to the small, round astromech droid sitting in the X-Wing’s socket a few feet behind her.

The ship’s internal comm circuitry transmitted her words to where the droid sat in the merciless, soundless expanse of vacuum. The same closed-loop direct-noise transmission piped his mournful whistle through her cockpit to her ears even as the screen to the right of her targeting system scrolled the translated words of his response for her eyes. The little droid agreed with her.

“There’s too much data in your systems and in the ship’s navicomputer that we can’t let the Imps—or whoever these sithspawn are—get their hands on,” Breha continued. She swallowed hard and found, not entirely to her surprise, that she had to blink hard to hold back a fresh bank of tears.

Another, sadder whistle, this time underscored by a few resolute beeps. Breha didn’t need to look at the translation screen to know what Shaker was saying, but she did anyway. These were going to be some of the last words her faithful little droid ever uttered; the least she could do was read them all.

“I’m sorry,” she said, forcing the words out around the lump in her throat. “I’m going to miss you.”

Shaker let out a long, sad little trill—he would miss her, too.

Breha dashed the back of one gloved hand across her cheeks, wiping away her tears. “Okay,” she said, and forced herself to straighten, to reach for the buttons of the ship’s computer. “Inputting the codes you need now…”

The other X-Wing moving alongside Breha’s on that steady, inexorable journey into the Super Star Destroyer’s hanger jerked and wobbled restlessly. Inside the cockpit, Poe Dameron let loose with a string of angry swear words that stretched across a galaxy’s worth of languages as he wrestled with his piloting yoke. “I know!” he shouted at the little droid plugged into the starship’s socket behind him. “I know! What does it look like I’m doing?”

The orange and white BB-8 unit warbled and bleeped at him enthusiastically, but neither the droid nor the pilot could do anything more to break the tractor beam lock than had Breha and slowly, helplessly, both ships arced into the hanger.

Dameron’s was first and as his ship crossed the magcon field barrier that held the vacuum at bay he grumbled, “All right, all right, I’m setting it down. I said I’m setting it down!” he shouted. It wasn’t clear whether he was shouting at the droid, at the unseen forces manipulating his ship, or merely at the galaxy at large. “Repulsors,” he muttered, “landing gear, blah blah blah…serve them right if I turned off the landing protocols and made them drag us in on our belly, scrape the kriff out of their nice shiny hanger…”

Despite his unhappy muttering, Poe engaged the landing cycle and allowed his small starship to come to a gentle landing inside the hanger. He couldn’t help looking up at the tall ceiling far above him, or at the rows and rows of TIE fighters stacked along the walls; it was clear that the Super Star Destroyer had not fielded even a third of its starfighter screen for the assault on Coruscant. In his heart, the commander of Rogue Squadron was offended that any ship should feel confident enough in a conflict with the Rogues to hold ships in reserve, but underneath his cocky fighter pilot bravado he knew—they hadn’t stood a chance against a force like this anyway, not one lone squadron of X-Wings, no matter _ how _famous their exploits or brave their pilots.

Likewise he didn’t stand a chance against the detachment of stormtroopers jogging forward toward his ship, their blasters held at the ready. He thought fleetingly of strafing them with his turbolasers, but dismissed the idea; he was already at the Imperials’ mercy and killing other sentients (even stormtroopers) when it served no purpose would be a vile act. Besides, the idea of shooting people with a ship’s lasers made his stomach churn.

He wondered if the stormtroopers had paused to think about the possibility of his vaping them from his ship. He wondered if stormtroopers even knew how to feel fear. It was impossible to tell if they felt anything at all behind those grim white helmets. Certainly none of them seemed to flinch as they lined up in front of his ship and waited for him to exit.

Grimacing and wishing that his flimsy dress uniform had included a blaster at his side, Poe hit the button to raise the hatch of his X-Wing. “Just stay chilly, buddy,” he muttered to the droid behind him. “Maybe they won’t notice you.” He raised his hands over his head before he started to rise, just in case any of the stormtroopers below were feeling nervous.

BB-8 warbled uncertainly and Poe forced a smile for him. “Hey,” he started to say, “you never know what—”

His words were cut off by the sudden, soft _ whump _of a small explosion.

Half-raised from his seat, Poe spun around to stare as Breha’s X-Wing canted sideways in a shower of sparks and smoke. It had barely crossed the threshold of the magcon shield when it slammed to the ground, one pair of wings crumpling beneath its weight. The astromech in the back of the ship wailed in distress.

Three-quarters of the stormtroopers whirled to point their blasters at the smoking X-Wing; the rest held to their discipline and kept their attention on Poe, although he was too flabbergasted to move, let alone try and make a break for it. He stared as the canopy of the other X-Wing started to raise, hitched and stuck, and then slammed open as Breha shoved it the rest of the way up manually.

She stood in the cockpit, smoke pouring across the glistening orange of her dress uniform, and stared at the stormtroopers for a moment. Then she, too, raised her hands.

“Port repulsor blew,” she announced in a carrying voice. “One of the TIEs must have strafed it in the furball, and the pressure of the tractor beam overloaded it.”

Poe frowned—that didn’t sound right—but nodded. “Good landing,” he called sarcastically.

_“E chu ta,” _Breha responded. She turned, shot a look at her still-wailing droid who abruptly fell silent, and then slithered down from her cockpit. She raised her hands again the moment her boots hit the deckplates and she turned and straightened slowly as two dozen stormtroopers raced forward to take her into custody.

Poe, grimacing again, hopped down from his own X-Wing and repeated Breha’s careful surrender. He felt sick inside, but fighting further wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to get himself and his lieutenant—not to mention both droids—killed in a hail of blasterfire. Like most pilots of Rogue Squadron, Poe Dameron would have been content to go out in a blaze of suicidal glory for the good of the mission, or of the New Republic—but dying now would gain him nothing.

Better to wait, learn what he could, and fight again later.

Breha seemed to feel the same way about it, since she allowed the stormtroopers to take her helmet, manacle her, and march her roughly over to join Poe, who was grimly permitting his own white-clad guards to slap identical binders around his gloved wrists. They were none too gentle, but they weren’t overly rough either. Poe got the impression that they weren’t going out of their way to manhandle him; it was just that gentleness was not a natural trait of stormtroopers. _ Go figure_, he thought drily, and turned to inspect Breha as she approached.

She was a slim brunette woman with a pale complexion, just a hair shorter than galactic human average. Her face was grimy with tear-streaks; a side effect of the smoke he assumed, since Breha wasn’t the sort of person who would willingly let the enemy see her cry. She didn’t seem to have been hurt by the little crash, but he couldn’t stop himself worrying: he was her squadron commander. That made her his responsibility, whether they were in vacuum or in the middle of an Imperial Super Star Destroyer.

He’d have preferred the vacuum.

Once they stood side by side, the two pilots were turned by their captors to face yet another detachment of stormtroopers marching toward them. They were led by a large trooper in gleaming silver armor, a thick black cape slung across her shoulders and a heavy blaster rifle cradled in her arms. Their footsteps rang crisply on the metal deckplates in nearly perfect unison.

“All this for us?” Poe muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Seems a little excessive.”

“Speak for yourself,” Breha croaked back. “I’d say it’s about kriffing time _ somebody _gave me a royal welcome. My mom used to be a princess, you know.”

“Sure they aren’t just impressed by your dad’s smuggling career?”

“They would be if they had any brains,” Breha retorted.

“Quiet,” the stormtrooper holding Poe’s arm growled, giving the pilot a shake.

“Do they not know they captured Rogues?” Poe asked, looking at Breha askance. “Quiet isn’t exactly what we’re known for, my friends,” he continued, raising his voice slightly to make sure that the stormtroopers approaching could hear what he said too. “Impossible victories? Yes. Equally impossible good looks and charm? Also yes. The ability to cause Imperials to break-out into cold fear sweat at the mere sight of our ships? You’d better believe it. But _ quiet _isn’t really something we—”

Once again Poe’s words were cut-off by an explosion, but a much larger one this time. Everyone spun to stare at the source: Breha’s X-Wing, which went up in a sudden enormous fireball. Lights flashed all over the hanger and alarms began to sound. Even BB-8 looked to see what was happening, rising from his socket and stretching his little neck forward with a startled, saddened warble for the loss of Shaker. Only Breha did not turn; under the cover of everyone’s distraction she looked down at her wrists and narrowed her eyes in a frown, popping her cuffs off with a quick application of the Force. One of the stormtroopers looked at her, started to say, “Hey—!”

Then the reason for the alarms sank in: the magcon field flickered, sparked, and collapsed.

“Warning,” a computerized voice announced, “magcon failure. Decompression imminent. Warning. Evacuate hanger Besh Three immediately. Decompression imminent. Warning—”

Poe stopped listening. He spun to face his own X-Wing and the little droid standing atop it. “BB-8,” he shouted, “get out of—”

And then with a sudden rush of wind, the last of the lights that indicated the presence of the magcon field went off and with them, the field itself. The hanger was abruptly opened to the cold void of space. The cold, _ hungry _void, which immediately sucked into it every scrap of air inside the hanger—and with it, everything that wasn’t nailed down, from ships to tools to crew.

The large blast doors at the end of the hanger began to iris shut. Screams and shouts raised from the troopers, pilots, and mechanics who filled the large room. They would have been running for the door except that the wind pulled everyone off their feet and sucked them quickly toward the void and the certain death that waited there—everyone except for Poe and Breha.

As his feet went out from under him—went out from under _all _of them, stormtroopers and prisoners alike—Breha reached toward Poe with one hand and a sudden, sharp tug of pressure jerked him sideways against the rush of air. She folded her fingers tightly around his bound wrists, then extended her other hand toward the closing doors. Another burst of pressure tugged at them both and they were suddenly moving forward, against the wind. Poe squinted into the unforgiving breeze, his mouth open and gaping, and then he figured it out: the Force. She was using the Force to drag them forward, while all around them everything and everyone else was vented into the void.

Desperate troopers grabbed for whatever handhold they could reach—a TIE fighter’s landing struts, a repulsor fork’s front prongs, their own comrade’s legs or arms—but the void’s hunger was relentless and their own strength was limited. As Poe watched, he saw first one and then another trooper lose their grip and go flying away out the open hanger behind him. Even the heavy equipment wasn’t immune to the pull: TIEs shook in their moorings and one improperly-secured ship snapped its tether and whirled away, crashing into three others and triggering another explosive cascade as it went. The heat barely ghosted across Poe’s back before it was gone, dragged into the chill of space.

The lead stormtrooper, the one in silver armor, had somehow managed to punch a handhold straight through the deckplates. She held herself crouched there, feet braced behind her and cloak streaming over her shoulders. She met Poe’s eyes with her own blank helmeted gaze and raised her blaster rifle one-handed. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout a warning to Breha, but then one of the stormtrooper’s feet slipped and she lost her grip. Still clutching her blaster, she blew backwards out the wide hanger door. With her free hand she grabbed at her belt, as though she might possibly have something there that could save her, but it was too late; she vanished into the void, leaving Poe and Breha to continue moving forward.

It wasn’t fast going; the strength of the vacuum’s pull dragged at them. Breha gritted her teeth, pulling them forward against it, gaining ground slowly—but all the while, the alarms were flashing and the doors were slowly closing. If they didn’t get through the opening in time, they would be as dead as the hapless stormtroopers spinning past them.

As they approached the threshold, the rush of air increased due to the funneling effect of the narrow opening. Breha almost lost her grip on Poe’s wrist but he managed to twist within the binders and wrap the fingers of one gloved hand around the back of hers, clutching at her desperately. Sweat trickled down Breha’s face despite the chill temperature. They inched forward into the closing doorway. One of Poe’s knees banged against the blast door and he winced. He hated being helpless, being dependent on someone else’s skills (there was a reason he flew _ solo _vehicles like X-Wings), but Poe was no Jedi; there was nothing he could do but cling to Breha and hope.

They collapsed heavily onto the ground on the other side of the blast door, which irised closed behind them. The roar of the wind died suddenly, but the shriek of alarms kept blaring. Poe scrambled to his feet and ran back the way they’d come, slamming himself into the door and staring through the little diamond-paned window in the middle.

The hanger was almost devoid of life now. The last gust of air from the closing doors tugged a heavy load lifter from its moorings and it, along with the four stormtroopers clinging to it, tumbled end over end toward the hanger door—and toward the X-Wing parked a few meters from the edge.

“No,” Poe shouted, “no, BB-8! No!”

He clawed at the door with his bound hands but there was nothing he could do. The lifter hit the X-Wing and it and the snubfighter, with the little droid standing on it, were sucked out into space alongside a hail of flailing stormtroopers.

“BB-8!” Poe wailed.

Breha shook him by the shoulder. He tried to ignore her but she shook him again, forcing him to turn and face her. “Commander!” she shouted. “Poe! Come on.” She popped his binders with the Force and tugged at his arm, trying to pull him down the corridor and away from the airless and empty hanger. “I’m sad about the droids too, but we have to keep moving.”

“You’re right,” Poe said in a listless voice. He shook his head. “You’re right.” He fell into step next to her and together the two pilots jogged down the empty hallway.

“We couldn’t let the Empire access their data,” Breha explained. She sounded pained and tired from the strain of Force-pulling them out of the void. “We weren’t prepared for a combat situation, so we—”

“—we didn’t have their security protocols engaged, I know,” Poe finished for her. “I know.” He shook his head again and swallowed hard. “Let’s just find a way out of here before—”

They turned the corner and almost plowed right into a column of stormtroopers jogging past down a perpendicular hallway. Poe threw an arm out and blocked the shorter girl from stumbling into the troopers, and the pilots scrambled backwards and pressed themselves against the side of the hallway. They stayed there, breathing hard, until the sound of booted feet faded into the distance.

“That was close,” Breha breathed.

“What I wouldn’t give for a blaster right now,” Poe said. “These sithspawned flimsiplast dress uniforms don’t even have pockets enough to carry a vibroblade…”

Breha shook her head in commiseration as they started off again, moving more cautiously this time. “Me, I’m kicking myself for not breaking protocol and insisting on wearing my lightsaber anyway.”

Poe nodded. “Yeah, that’d come in handy right now,” he agreed. “Still, I’d rather have some blasters. If we can find any stormtroopers traveling in less than squad strength, I say we try and pick ‘em off and take their weapons.”

Breha nodded. “You’re the boss, boss,” she said. She frowned speculatively. “Next time we see some, maybe I can try and Force-nudge a few into ditching their buddies…”

“Worth a try,” Poe said. “Do you think your mom got—”

“Stop!” Breha gasped, her voice little more than a whisper but one tight and sharp with fear. She flung out a hand, catching Poe by the arm and yanking him to a halt next to her. Her brown eyes had opened so wide that the whites stood out around the irises like warning lights and her cheeks were paler than the bleak Imperial Gray of the walls around them.

Poe stopped, his own eyes widening in reaction to her fear. “What?” he whispered.

Breha shook her head. “I feel a…a presence…a _ darkness…” _

The door at the end of the hallway opened with a pneumatic hiss. A short, slim figure in a long black cloak and faceless helmet stepped forward. The white-clad stormtroopers following in escort seemed more of an afterthought than anything else; menace radiated from the cloaked figure so strongly that even Poe, lacking his companion’s Jedi senses though he was, could feel it.

“Run!” Breha cried.

The two Rogues turned and ran.

Behind them, the black-clad figure walked onwards in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's too much of a coincidence for me to expect anyone to believe it, but I swear I wrote this scene _before_ TLJ came out. Now picture my amused confusion when half the fandom exploded in outrage over Leia doing something that I considered a rather basic Force technique...ah, sexism, will it ever cease to bewilder?


	10. Chapter 10

**A FEW PARSECS FROM CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The cockpit of the _ Millennium Falcon _was in disarray. Open panels exposed nests of wiring and diodes on the walls blinked in frantic, irregular flashes. The golden protocol droid C-3PO sat in the navigator’s chair, his stiff body limp and his round eyes flickering. Wires stretched from his chest, neck, and hand to ports on the cockpit wall. Leia Organa-Solo sat in the chair usually claimed by Chewbacca, a datapad in her hand and a frown on her lined and lovely face. She was still dressed in the now-stained white robes she had been wearing at the aborted peace-signing but her face and hands were clean again and her cuts glistened with the faintly greenish gleam of bacta balm. A white bandage wrapped around a larger wound on one hand and another patch of white medical tape covered the gash where her chin had hit the permacrete.

The pilot’s seat next to her held no pilot, but a pair of battered black boots protruded from beneath the cockpit controls and rested uncomfortably against the back of the seat. Aside from the periodic clatter of tools, jumping sparks, and swearing that rose from below those boots, there was nothing else to indicate the presence of Han Solo in his beloved ship. Of Chewbacca, there was even less visual sign but the distant and irregular grumble of Shyriiwook echoing down the corridor attested to his presence elsewhere on the _ Falcon_.

Bail, still soot-stained but no longer giving off puffs of smoke, walked into the cockpit with a datapad in each hand. “I think we’re in the Taanab system,” he announced. “Chewie and I ran a visual analysis of the visible star patterns and managed to match them to archival--”

A loud clang from beneath the cockpit controls was followed by a louder curse and Han’s boots swung out of view. With assistance from his wife, the old Corellian squirmed laboriously out from under the control panel. Rather than stand, he glared up at his son from where he sat wedged on the floor between the two front seats. “Taanab?” Han repeated, panting slightly. He sounded excited. “That means we’re near the Perlemian Trade Route.” He wiped the back of one half-gloved hand across his forehead, adding another smear of grease to the pattern already decorating his rugged features.

“What good does that do us?” asked Leia briskly. “Our personal comms still don’t have enough range to reach Taanab from here. We’d have been picking up local signals already if we were close to any inhabited planets.”

“Yes,” Bail agreed politely, “but at least we know where we are. Chewie and I think that we can start reconstructing our navigational charts through visual scanning--”

“That will take weeks!” Leia exclaimed.

Bail nodded, his face drawn. “I know, mom. But it’s the best we can do.”

“The New Republic doesn’t _ have _weeks,” said Leia.

“We don’t need ‘em,” Han interrupted. His wife and son turned to stare at him with near-identical expressions of baleful concern on their faces. Han was grinning. “We can manage another jump or two before the hyperdrive crashes--right, Bail?” he said.

Bail nodded reluctantly. “Probably,” he allowed.

“Then all we need are a set of destination coordinates. We can plot the jump manually.”

Bail’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline as Leia’s eyes narrowed to slits beneath tightly drawn brows. He opened his mouth, but she spoke first, her voice sharp: “You need more than a start point and an end point to plot a hyperspace jump.”

Han levered himself to his feet--this time without any help from his wife, who had folded her arms over her datapad and was scowling at him--and rolled his eyes. “I know that,” he said testily, rubbing his back and leaning over C-3PO’s motionless form to start prodding at the navicomputer buttons. “But a little visual mapping will give us rudimentary stats of the local charts, and Chewie and I know the Perlemian Trade Route well enough to cobble-together a basic outline--”

“--which still only gets us local space,” Leia reminded Han, “and no destination coordinates. Unless you’re telling me you have Taanab’s location memorized?”

Han shook his head. He glanced over his shoulder to grin at his wife. “Not Taanab,” he said. “But we know someone who recently set up shop on Norulac…”

Leia sighed and lowered her forehead into the hand that wasn’t currently full of datapad. “Lando,” she said.

“Lando,” Han confirmed. “And luckily, I happen to remember the coordinates he sent…”

Bail’s eyes lit up. “We’re going to see Uncle Lando?” he said.

“Providing the engines don’t burn out on the way,” Leia muttered. “And your father calculates the orbital drift right so we don’t materialize inside a moon or somewhere on the other side of the galaxy…”

“Go tell Chewie to stop messing-around with the engines and come help me run these numbers,” Han told his son. Bail raced off down the corridor as Han flicked the switch on C-3PO’s neck and bellowed, “Hey, Goldenrod! Wake-up! We need your processors.”

“Oh my,” Threepio exclaimed as his eyes flickered back to their usual steady luminescence. “What have I missed?”

“Lando,” Leia said. “We’re going to Lando.”

An excited Wookiee bellow reverberated down the hallway as C-3PO murmured, “Oh dear.”


	11. Chapter 11

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Outside the Super Star Destroyer, doomed stormtroopers and broken equipment spiraled off together into the void of space amidst a gust of rapidly-dissipating oxygen. A moment later an X-Wing starfighter bearing the red side-stripe of Rogue Squadron followed, a white and orange astromech droid spinning away from it.

The little droid was simple in shape: a small sphere with a smaller half-sphere rotating around it for a head. It spun that head around now so that it could keep its optical sensors focused on the Star Destroyer even as its body twirled through the void. After a moment three small hatches on the droid twisted open and emitted short puffs of air.

After a few moments of calculation, the droid stopped its spin and then, once it was oriented to face the hull of the ship again, it issued a longer jet and propelled itself back towards the Super Star Destroyer.

Unnoticed by BB-8, a figure in silver armor pulled itself hand-over-hand along a grapple cable reaching back to the ship. Her long black cloak stuck out stiff and straight behind her, held in place by the flash-frozen moisture of the hanger’s vanished atmosphere. Frost stretched in thin, fanlike coils across the blank black visor of her gleaming helmet.

Far below, Coruscant glittered like an obsidian jewel. Little patches of fire flared and died as the detritus from the blown hanger hit the atmosphere, ignited, and burned to ash. If the silver-clad stormtrooper mourned the companions lost to void or reentry flames, she hid her feelings behind her helmet and kept climbing.

  
  


**ABOARD** ** _ THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Inside the Super Star Destroyer, Poe Dameron and Breha Solo ran as if their lives depended on it.

“Where do we go?” Breha asked, shouting both from fear and in an attempt to be heard over the noise of their laboring breaths and rattling boots.

“I’m thinking!” Poe snapped back. “Um—this way!” He took a quick left turn down a crosscut hallway and Breha scrambled to follow. “If this thing is laid-out like a regular Impstar Super, this should take us to the auxiliary hanger maintenance corridors.”

“You don’t sound very certain,” Breha said dubiously, but she didn’t slack her breakneck pace.

“If you wanted certainty in your life you should have joined one of General Salm’s squadrons, kid!” Poe shot back over his shoulder.

“Couldn’t,” Breha retorted breathlessly. “Uncle Wedge would have disowned me if I’d gone into Starfighter Command as anything but a Rogue!”

“That’s true!” Poe agreed, breathing just as hard as the young Jedi, if not harder. “He took it hard enough when Syal opted for E-Wings instead of—”

“Stop!” Breha shouted, but it was too late: Poe had tripped the automatic sensor on the door in front of them. It swished open revealing the black-cloaked figure coming toward them down the hallway ahead, stormtroopers trotting along obediently beside. They were less than three meters away and closing briskly.

“How’d they_ do _that?” Poe wondered, but Breha was already hauling on his arm.

“Dark Jedi!” she snapped. “Or Sith—I don’t know! But definitely bad news!”

“You don’t need to be trained in the Force to figure that out,” Poe shouted as they sprinted off in the other direction, back towards the hallway junction. “All you need are eyeballs!”

“Well use yours to find us another path!” Breha said.

“Hold onto your hairbuns, kid, we’ll get out of this yet,” Poe assured his young pilot, but even as he spoke the door at the end of the next cross-hallway opened. It revealed another hanger, similar to the one that they had left moments ago, although this one still had a functioning magcon shield and, consequently, a full atmosphere along with its regular complement of mechanics and pilots.

Through the door stepped a tall, broad-shouldered figure clad in silver armor. Frost crusted the gleaming plates and stiffened the long black cloak that hung past the trooper’s knees. She had no blaster in her hands this time, but the stormtrooper commander was unmistakable.

“Sithspit!” Poe shouted, skidding to a stop, Breha stumbling at his heels. “Wrong way!” he said, and the two turned around to run, but now the black-cloaked figure was walking up behind them. Both the black and silver figures were flanked by a dozen ordinary stormtroopers, all of them carrying blasters.

The two Rogues turned back and forth, looking for a way out. Breha looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe—” she began, but the black-clad figure raised a hand.

“Stop!” The voice was loud, crisp, and mechanical. It was also impossible to disobey. At the cloaked figure’s gesture both Breha and Poe fell to their knees.

“Sith,” Breha gasped, pressing her hands against the floor as though to fight a wave of dizziness.

“Not…exactly,” the black-clad figure said. Despite the filtering helmet, amusement was plain in the soft words. “But you…you are quite definitely a Jedi.”

Breha forced herself to look up at the dark and looming presence. “I am,” she said, her voice clear and ringing. “I am Jedi Knight Breha Organa-Solo, and I am not afraid of you.”

vIndeed?”

For a long moment silence stretched between the two figures, the orange and the black, broken only by the muffled clatter of boots as the stormtroopers clustered in behind their two masters. Then Poe raised a hand and said, “And I’m Commander Poe Dameron of Rogue Squadron. Not a Jedi. Also not afraid of you, for the record. Hi.”

“Speak when spoken to, scum!” came another filtered voice, this one gruffer and angrier than the first.

It belonged to the silver armored stormtrooper who grabbed Poe’s hair in one gauntleted fist and started to yank him backwards, but she stopped when the black-cloaked figure raised a hand.

“Enough, Phasma. This Commander Dameron is right: introductions should be made. It is only polite.” A soft laugh followed the words, all the more chilling for its lightness. “It is a pleasure to meet you both, young Organa-Solo, young Dameron. You may call me Darth Revan.”

Breha’s eyes went wide. Poe started to open his mouth, unaware of Breha’s shock and ready as ever with a smart-aleck remark, but Revan wasn’t done speaking: “Now throw them in the brig. I’ll deal with them once Coruscant has fallen.”

Revan turned in a swirl of black robes and strode off down the hallway, a detachment of stormtroopers falling in obediently behind.

“You heard the Dark Lord, scum,” Phasma snapped. It wasn’t clear if she was speaking to the Rogues or to her own soldiers. She yanked Poe upright by his hair while two other stormtroopers jumped forward to drag Breha to her feet. “Detention level—now!” Phasma barked and they moved out, Poe and Breha with their hands on their heads and the stormtroopers with their blasters raised and ready to fire.

Melting ice dripped off Phasma’s cloak and pooled in her wake. Then a dozen marching feet smeared it across the deckplates, trampling the delicate ice crystals into oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to post a "cast list" for all the major characters at the end (still pretending as though this were being filmed as Episode VII lol) and so far the only casting I'm still not wholly convinced on is Bail. Right now I have Chase Stokes selected, but if anyone else has alternative suggestions for someone who could play a good twin brother to Daisy Ridley, please share them in the comments!
> 
> (Yes, Adam Driver is too old, sorry.)


	12. Chapter 12

**NORULAC, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The _ Millennium Falcon _was a sorry sight as it shook and shuddered its way through the atmosphere of Norulac. The perpetually-rusting hull was further marred by blaster scarring and smoke issuing from its numerous wounds, and the large sensor dish that usually accented the top of the ship was completely gone. On a more crowded world, the arrival of a freighter in such a condition of obvious battle damage would have engendered a great deal of attention, but the mountainous planet below was sparsely settled.

The _ Falcon _dropped several meters with an abrupt lurch and a fresh gout of thick black smoke, then wobbled back to level flight and began descending in a steeper arc as though the pilot was eager to land the ship before the controls failed completely. It came in low over a large cauldron lake--almost big enough to be declared a small sea--and headed for the thickest cluster of civilization visible on the surface: an ostentatious and elaborate resort brimming with luxuries and radiating artificial light in a dozen different colors. Against the low, late afternoon sunlight gilding the crystalline lake, it gave off an aura of tawdriness juxtaposed with elegance: the sort of place that would be frequented by those with more money than they knew what to do, but who still considered themselves--justifiably or not--to be tasteful and artistic individuals.

The place was the Tendrando Mountain Resorts and Casino and the _ Millennium Falcon _ would have been out of place among the expensive shuttles and yachts that filled its docking yards even if it hadn’t been belching smoke and sparks. No one tried to prevent the aging Corellian freighter from landing, however; indeed, the platform to which the _ Falcon _ had been directed was one of the most prominent and desirably located and no sooner had the wheezing landing gear scraped against the pearly duracrete than the transparisteel doorway leading into the resort proper slid open to reveal a well-dressed elderly man who ran toward the ship without hesitation or dignity.

The hatchway of the _ Falcon _opened and disgorged its passengers with similar haste. Leia was the first one down the ramp, still wearing her scorched white robes. Close on her heels followed Bail, Han, and Chewbacca, all three sporting progressively increasing coats of soot. See-Threepio came last of all, tottering stiffly in the rear like an ineffectual governess chasing their absconded charges.

Lando met Leia midway and clasped her hands together in both of his. “What’s--” he began, but Leia was already speaking, cutting him off:

“The treaty was a ruse. The Empire attacked. We must contact the fleet immediately.”

Lando didn’t waste time asking foolish questions. “Of course,” he said, nodding agreement. He spared a nod of greeting for the assorted males behind Leia as he turned, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back to guide her onward. She strode toward the resort at a brisk pace, giving the impression less of someone who needed to be guided than of a woman who would have walked through Lando if he had tried to delay her.

“Master Calrissian!” Threepio’s cheerful voice rose from the rear of the little group and then trailed-off as the droid realized no one was listening. “What a pleasure it is to see you again, although admittedly these circumstances are not precisely what one might...ah...”

As the doors whooshed open upon their approach, he looked back at Han and asked, “Breha?”

Han’s voice was as grim and set as his face. His fixed gaze didn’t waver from the back of his wife’s head. “She’s with her squadron,” he said.

Lando winced, looking sorry to have spoken. The little frown of worry between his brows deepened. Bail put a hand on his arm. “I’d know if she were hurt,” he said softly, glancing over his shoulder to give his father a reassuring smile. If Han noticed he gave no sign, but Chewbacca warbled his own affirmative agreement with the young Jedi’s statement.

“Good,” said Lando somewhat weakly. “That’s a relief, at least…”

None of the Organa-Solos appeared particularly comforted. Chewbacca barked an enquiry and Lando seized on the conversational offering with the air of a drowning man clutching a sturdy branch: “Yes,” he said as they crossed the threshold of the opulent resort, “I suppose we have. It’s nothing to rival the luxury resorts of Pantolomin or Spira or the casinos of Ord Mantell or even the _ Kuari Princess _ but it’s certainly a step up from my old Bespin Holiday Towers, and we turn a tidy little prof--”

“Where’s your nearest long-range communicator?” Leia interrupted.

“Almost there,” Lando replied, switching gears smoothly from sales pitch to efficient host. He picked up the pace, almost jogging along the wood-panelled hallway in order to get in front of Leia. Artwork--a mixture of holo-reproductions and originals--dotted the walls, some showing scenes of Norulac and others the skylines and beaches and mountains of a dozen distant worlds. Next to a holographic reproduction of a moss painting from Alderaan, Lando spun to a stop and punched a series of buttons on the display card indicating title, artist, and world of origin. In most cases such a card would have also listed where the original was displayed, but for this piece there was nothing to list.

“Oh,” Threepio piped-up, “a reproduction of an Alderaanian moss-painting, how elegant.”

“We like to keep our monitoring stations and utility access points discreet,” Lando explained absently as a panel in the wall popped loose and began to revolve. “Gives people the illusion of being off-the-grid, helps them relax…”

His words trailed-off as his brain caught up to the automatic patter; the Organa-Solos weren’t here for relaxation. The Organa-Solos were here because the galaxy had just gone off the edge--_again_.

He grimaced and stepped up to the computer terminal revealed by the moving panel. “Just let me punch in my code to give you off-world access,” he explained to Leia, suiting words to deed by doing just that and stepping quickly back. “Okay, you’re good to go.”

Leia barely spared him a nod of thanks before swooping forward and taking command of the terminal, her fingers flying over the keyboard and dials. She entered the long string of codes necessary for military communications from memory, eyes fixed on the screen as she waited for the reply that would indicate she had a secure connection.

Behind her, Lando eased himself over closer to Han, who was watching his wife as fixedly as she watched her screen. Lando cleared his throat. “So, uh...had a little trouble with my ship, I see,” he said.

Han barely mustered a smile to accompany the automatic, “It’s not your ship.”

Lando grunted. “Still looks like you need some repairs...and I expect you’re in a hurry.”

Bail was the first to realize something wasn’t right; he turned to stare at his adoptive uncle, brows furrowed in thought, but Chewbacca picked up on the same thing a few seconds later and tilted his head down to look at Lando as the handsome human continued: “I’ll loan you one of my yachts. You can swap the transponder--I have some anonymous spares--and get back on the move within the hour. I’ll see to the _ Falcon_, tuck her somewhere out of sight for repairs and send her after you once she’s spaceworthy again.”

“Thanks,” Han said absently, “but I’m not sure that’ll be necessary. Repairs shouldn’t take more than a few days, and I’m not sure the Republic will have anywhere urgent to send us--to send Leia, anyway--before that. The biggest headache is going to be downloading replacement nav data--”

“Forget about the loan,” Lando interrupted. “Call it a gift. That way you don’t need to worry about bringing it back in one piece.”

He was trying to smile, but the expression kept slipping off his face, leaving strain and worry behind.

“Oh my,” said Threepio, “that is quite generous, Master Calrissian!”

Han finally pried his eyes away from his wife (from the steadily increasing volume of her muttered curses, Leia wasn’t having much luck getting through) and turned to look at his old friend. “What’s the rush?” he asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“It’s not my rush,” Lando protested. He waved a hand toward Leia. “I just figure the princess will be in a hurry to get back to the fight--and the rest of you too, of course. I just want to help.”

Han shook his head. “It sounds more to me like you’re trying to get us out of here as fast as possible.” His hand didn’t stray toward the blaster on his hip, but he did adjust his posture as though bracing for a fight. “Why? What do you know we don’t?”

“I don’t know anything and I don’t need to,” Lando retorted shortly. “The way you showed up here tells me it’s bad, and trouble has a way of spreading--and of following you.” He swallowed, his shoulders sagging. “Han, I love you like the brother I never wanted, but I don’t want to get caught-up in all this again. I have too much to lose. I have a life here--”

“So you’ll just sit back in your plush resort and relax while we risk our lives to protect your cushy little life?” Han’s voice was a snarl, his hands curling into fists at his side.

“Dad--” Bail reached for his father’s arm but Han shook him off, never taking his eyes off his old friend.

“I say, Captain Solo--” Threepio began.

Chewbacca shook his head, barking his disappointment. Lando flinched, but stood his ground.

“I want to help you,” he said, pleading for understanding--or maybe just for absolution. “I’m going to help you. I just...I can’t lose it all again, Han. I did my fair share of fighting, and then I got out. Built a life, a home, a family--”

“So did I!” Han snapped. “What do you think I’m fighting to protect?”

“I resigned my commission!” Lando shouted back. Chewbacca roared, but Lando raised his voice over the Wookiee’s bellow: “I’m not a General anymore! Neither are you!”

“I remind you I was an admiral--”

“And you hated every minute of it!” Lando cut him off. “You liked command even less than I did--”

“I still did it!” Han was shouting too now, Chewie bellowing over both of them. Threepio’s desperate protests that they all calm down and discuss the matter civilly might as well have been spoken straight into the vacuum of space for all the notice anyone paid him. Bail sighed and pressed his fingertips together, lowering his head to rest on them. Leia ignored them all in favor of jabbing at the recalcitrant computer terminal.

Lando slumped, suddenly deflating. “So did I,” he said softly. “I fought my fight. I’m done. Han, they don’t need us. The New Republic has--”

“A Super Star Destroyer,” Han interrupted. “That’s what the Empire brought to the peace signing. A shiny new Super Star Destroyer.”

“Along with a good-sized support fleet,” Bail added without looking up.

Lando swallowed. “What?” he breathed. “The Empire doesn’t have the resources left to--”

“Well they found them somewhere,” said Han, voice grim.

Lando stared. “That’s...that’s impossible,” he said, the words less of a statement and more of a prayer.

Han shook his head. “Impossible or not, they did it. We barely got out alive--and a lot of people didn’t.”

“Han…”

“I can’t get through.”

Leia’s voice was sharp, frustrated, lined with fear. Everyone turned toward her, Bail looking up from his fingers and Lando’s cape flapping weakly in the air.

“The fleet, I can’t contact them. My codes should be good, but civilian equipment like this just isn’t specced for transmissions on military channels, and at this distance--” She shook her head.

“Then we’ll jump there directly,” Han said. He whirled back to face Lando again. “I changed my mind,” he said, “we’ll take a ship. The fastest one you’ve got.”

Lando looked suddenly unsure but all he said was, “Okay, I’ll get my people to work swapping-in a clean transponder…”

“No time,” Han said, before Leia could; Chewbacca _ wuffed _ agreement. “We’ll take it how it is, punch our way through whatever we need to.”

“But if you run into trouble…”

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t want your name associated with it, is that it?” she guessed.

“Oh now Mistress Leia, let’s not assume…”

“We’ll tell the Empire we stole it from you, if it’ll make you feel better,” Han snarled.

“Oh sure,” Lando retorted, voice as venomous as Han’s, “because they’ll believe that--”

“We’ll be jumping straight to the fleet’s staging-point,” Bail pointed-out reasonably. “We’re not _ going _to run into any Imperial entanglements between breaking atmo here and arriving there, Uncle Lando. You don’t need to worry.”

Lando shook his head. “Kid, I hate to break it to you but your parents can manifest Imperial entanglements like nobody in the galaxy--”

“Then the faster we leave, the sooner you can go back to sticking your head in the sand,” Han snapped, even as Threepio said, “He does have a point, Captain Solo, Mistress Leia--” Han ignored the droid, raising his voice to add, “Or maybe up your own--”

“We don’t have time for this!” Leia raised her voice to be heard over the growing argument as well as over the undercurrent of grumbles issuing from an increasingly annoyed-looking Chewbacca. “Coruscant is under attack and helpless and even at flank speed it’ll take the fleet an hour to get there, and _ us _ almost twice as long to get to _ them_. We need to leave _ now_.”

Lando’s eyes darted between his old friends and the young Jedi he had once bounced on his knee and tried not to think about the fact that the last time he had felt this trapped, those same three old friends and their golden protocol droid had come limping into his city in the clouds in the same broken ship, trailing a dark cloak and a gloved fist that he still saw in his nightmares. 

He wondered if his luck had finally run-out for good.


	13. Chapter 13

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Shuttles and snubfighters streamed from the hangers of the various Imperial capital ships: ferrying personnel and equipment to and from the planet, repairing the damage from the skirmish with Rogue Squadron, collecting debris and the dead, and dispatching troops and technicians to take control of Coruscant’s satellites and defense systems.

BB-8 watched in lonesome silence from _ The Malachor_’s hull. His magnetic lock on the ship would keep him attached under all but the most extreme of interstellar maneuvers and his own sensor profile was too small to register in any scan against the backdrop of that massive vessel. He was safe, but he was also alone. Worse than that, his pilot was in trouble.

(Poe was always getting in trouble whenever he didn’t have BB-8 around to watch him.)

Spiraling his head around on his base like a human shaking out their muscles before a feat of strength, BB-8 girded his metaphorical loins and rolled forward across the hull. He ignored the ships passing overhead. The BB series was the smallest astromech yet designed and even the old, blocky Clone Wars-era models would have seemed like little more than a dustmote against the great pale bulk of a Super Star Destroyer.

Undetected, he rolled to the edge of the nearest hanger and leaned forward to peer inside. His head dome swiveled back and forth, tracking the passage of ships in and out of _ The Malachor_’s cavernous maw. The little droid crept closer, wobbling on the very lip of the abyss--and then, as a squadron of TIE fighters screamed past with a wail, he rolled over the edge and disappeared within.

  
  


**ABOARD** ** _ THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

At a mere 1.6 meters and 140 pounds, Darth Revan did not have a naturally imposing stature. Nonetheless, menace radiated off the lithe black-clad figure striding up the corridor of the Super Star Destroyer, bootheels ringing against the deckplates. In addition to the plated boots, Revan was dressed in layers of black robes and segments of metal armor supplemented with heavy belts criss-crossed in front of a red taberd. Two lightsaber hilts dangled from those belts along with a number of other, more sinister-looking objects. Revan’s face was concealed by a visored mask that looked oddly reminiscent of the helmets worn by Mandalorian warriors, as though those had been a predecessor to its design--or perhaps the other way around; the red and black surface was heavily weathered and it was easy to believe that the mask was decades (or even centuries) old.

Revan moved with the ease and assurance of a young athlete however, setting a pace that the escort of the six taller stormtroopers trailing the Dark Lord were hard-pressed to match. Ignoring them, Revan waved a black-gloved hand at one of the matte-black doors--Cell 3827--that lined the narrow hallway. The slick black panel _ swooshed _up, revealing a cramped room in which Breha Organa-Solo lay strapped to a torture couch.

The moment she saw Revan, Breha launched into a litany of uncomplimentary Huttese, Rodian, Devaronian, and Nikto. The young Jedi gave the impression that the only thing stopping her from adding Shyriiwook to the diatribe was the fact that her human voicebox was ill-equipped to make the necessary growls and yips. Revan tolerated the insults equanainably for several moments and then slashed a hand through the air.

“Enough.”

Breha went silent, gasping. Her brown eyes widened with fear but the scowl she gave the Dark Lord was pure outrage.

“I commend your vocabulary,” Revan continued, hand lowering again, “but I’ve lived too long to be moved by such petty barbs. Your insults waste both our time.”

“I do have an urgent appointment elsewhere,” Breha quipped. “So if you’ll just undo these straps, we can both be on our way…”

“Regrettably, I fear you’ll be delayed,” said Revan, sounding amused. “But my associates and I will do our best to keep you entertained during your time here.” Bootheels clicked again as Revan stepped forward, letting the door slide closed between the two Force users and the cluster of stormtroopers.

“Good, I hate being bored,” Breha snapped, turning back and forth as best as her restraints would allow in an attempt to track that fluttering black cloak and opaque black visor as Revan circled her.

“Are Jedi allowed to hate now?” Revan asked lightly. “I have been away some time, perhaps things have changed.”

“You think you’re scaring me with this Dark Lord Revan act?” Breha retorted. “Because I know it’s bantha _ poodu_. Revan died centuries ago.”

“Indeed?” said Revan, running an idle finger along the edge of the torture couch near Breha’s arm. “At whose hand?”

Breha blinked, nonplussed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not an historian.”

“And yet you know of Revan.”

“It’s one of the stories they tell us in training, about the Jedi hero who fell to the Dark Side after getting too strong a taste for war.” Breha arched an eyebrow. “It’s a cautionary tale,” she added, in case the Dark Lord was too obtuse to get the point. “Nobody wants to end up like Revan.”

Revan laughed. “I think I’m flattered,” was the chuckled response. “But if you remember the story, doesn’t it ‘end’ with Revan venturing into the Unknown Regions to face some threat even more dire than that of the Mandalorian Wars? Why so unwilling to believe that I might be back?”

Breha snorted, unimpressed. “That was centuries ago. Whether by a lightsaber, a blaster bolt in the back, or simple old age there’s no way Revan could still be alive today.”

“The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities that some consider...unnatural,” Revan said cheerfully.

Breha frowned. “Well you’d better hope you’ve got a whole armory full of those,” she said sharply. “It’s the only way you’re going to survive the beating that’s coming your way as soon as the fleet gets here.”

“And you, little Jedi?” Revan asked softly, leaning in so closely that Breha could see herself reflected in that cold black visor. “How are you going to survive what’s coming to _ you _next?”

Banter finally deserting her, Breha swallowed. “I trust in the Force,” she whispered.

Revan laughed and reached for the controls of the torture couch. Waves of sharp blue lightning lashed across Breha’s body as she thrashed, screaming.

  
  


**NORULAC, 40 YEARS ABE:**

“Yeah, okay," said Lando, his voice a mixture of reluctance and resignation as he turned and let the others to a hanger. "Follow me. You sure about leaving the _Falcon_, though?" he asked. “We have excellent repair facilities here, it won’t take that long to put her back in flying order…”

“A minute ago you couldn’t kick us off-world fast enough,” Han retorted as Chewbacca grumbled above him. “Suddenly now that your name might be on the ship we take instead, you’re all happy to wait while we get our ship fixed-up, huh?”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve--”

Suddenly Bail gave a little cry and doubled over. Han caught his son before the young Jedi could fall all the way to the permacrete underfoot and held him up, staggering slightly under the unexpected weight. Leia gasped and pressed both hands to her mouth, heedless of bacta patches or bandages. Instinctively, Lando reached out to steady her.

“Breha,” Leia whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Poe Dameron pounded at the door of his cell, first with fists and then with feet. The flat gray durastreel didn’t so much as tremble. He scowled at all four walls of the tiny room, down at the useless dress boots on his feet, and up at the too-small-to-squirm-through air vents overhead. He returned his desperate attention to the door, shouting, “Rey! Kid! Hang on!” He punched, kicked, slapped, and slammed his shoulder against the door. It didn’t move. “Hey! Hey, Imperial scum! Hey you listen to me! You want to torture somebody then you start with me, dammit! I’m the commander, you go through _ me! _ Leave her alone, you hear me? Hey! Breha! HEY!”

The door abruptly shot open, staggering Poe; a heavy gauntleted hand slapped him in the chest and propelled him backwards almost as quickly. The back of his legs collided with the edge of the cell’s sparse bunk and the only reason he didn’t go sprawling was because there wasn’t enough room for him to do more than sit, abruptly and unintentionally, in a sort of breathless collapse.

The chrome-clad stormtrooper commander--_Phasma, _ Poe remembered, she was called _ Phasma_\--had to bend low to step through the door into his cell. She handed her blaster backwards and Poe caught a glimpse of two regular stormtroopers waiting in the hallway outside. One of them took her blaster and slung both it and his own weapon back against his white-armored shoulders.

Poe wondered why Phasma had divested herself of her weapon before entering a prisoner’s cell--and then he looked at her again, looked _ up _ at her again, and realized that his best chance of overpowering her would have been to try and grab the blaster. Unarmed, even his Rogue’s confidence didn’t let him think he had much of a chance against this mountain of a soldier.

Right now the thinking part of Poe’s brain wasn’t in charge, though, so he launched himself off his feet and came in swinging.

Phasma caught his arm, swung him around like a ragdoll, and pinned him backwards against her broad and shiny chest. Poe tried to elbow her in the side and she laced her free arm through his, holding him up so that his toes barely brushed the ground. He took advantage of that to try kicking her in the knee but she rearranged her grip so her gauntleted forearm was pressed across his windpipe.

He gagged and swore, his cheeks going red as his body tried desperately to compensate for his suddenly reduced oxygen intake.

“Be quiet,” Phasma said. Even accounting for the emotion-leeching quality of her helmet’s filter, she sounded unmoved.

“Nnnn,” Poe grunted. “Br-haaa…”

Phasma gave him a gentle shake, like one might use to get a naughty child’s attention before they ran out into speeder traffic.

“Be grateful that the Dark Lord has not turned to you yet, pilot...and even more grateful that we haven’t simply been told to space you.” She didn’t so much release him as fling him away from her.

Poe hit the bunk and the sloping wall behind it in something that was half-roll and half-tumble. He scrambled on hands and knees, panting hard, spinning back around to face her.

Phasma was staring down at him, blank-faced behind her helmet but somehow giving off the impression of a curious sentient studying a very strange, very small new bug. “I suppose Revan thinks you could have _ some _value,” she mused, sounding unconvinced even with her own words.

Outrage restored Poe’s voice. “I’m the commander of Rogue Squadron!” he yelped. “I’m an extremely valuable and important prisoner!”

Phasma snorted.

Poe’s cheeks colored. “And I’m the ranking New Republic officer on this ship, so if you scumsucking Huttspawn want to torture anybody, you start with me.”

“You?” Phasma barked a laugh. “What good are you?”

“I--”

Phasma didn’t let him answer; it hadn’t been a question. “You don’t have the Force. Your little pilot there does. _ She _matters to Lord Revan. You?” The shiny helmet tilted sideways, as though Phasma was studying him from a fresh angle in hopes of seeing something better, then it shook side-to-side dismissively. “You don’t have anything Revan wants.”

She turned to go, all stiff chrome armor and heavy black cloak, reeking of confident disinterest; Poe Dameron dismissed from her mind as an inconsequential annoyance.

That was a mistake. “You don’t have the Force either, do you?” Poe’s words were also not a question. Phasma stopped, one hand on the edge of the open doorframe, her head already bowed in mid-exit, her shoulders going stiff beneath their heavy chrome cuirass.

Poe lounged back on the bunk as though it were a plush couch in a pirate’s pleasure palace. The smirk on his face was the sly, triumphant expression of a snubjockey who knows his shot just hit home. “Jealous?” he asked lightly.

For a long, tight moment Phasma didn’t move; didn’t even seem to breathe. When she finally released her grip on the doorframe and turned back around to face him, the impression of her fingers remained dug into the durasteel. She stared down at Poe from behind her featureless black visor and said, her voice dripping with calm, “I rarely find myself jealous of tools, no. Especially knowing how quickly my Master tends to break them.”

Poe’s dark eyes flashed and his grin turned sharp and toothy. “Gonna find that hard to do with us,” he retorted.

Phasma chuckled, a soft and chilling sound that seemed to crawl straight up Poe’s spine and leave a coating of ice behind. “Darth Revan has been walking this path for thousands of years. Your little Jedi toy in there won’t last a week.”

“Thousands of years, sure.” Poe rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should dial-down the brainwashing regimen; it sounds like you swallowed a little too much propaganda-punch there, Shiny.”

“Hmm,” was Phasma’s only response--noncommittal, unimpressed, bored. A muffled buzz of communication passed between the two stormtroopers on guard duty and Phasma’s head raised as though listening to something Poe couldn’t hear. Without another word she turned and left the cell. The door swished shut behind her, leaving Poe alone in his solitary confinement.

As he stared after the wake of the departing troopers, his cocky smirk faded. He could no longer hear Breha screaming, but the silence still seemed to pulse with the echoes of her cries. Poe sat back gingerly on the flat black bunk, wincing at his fresh bruises, the defiant energy that had carried him through the confrontation with Phasma leeching away. In its wake he was left looking worried...and, somehow, old.


	15. Chapter 15

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Screams echoed off the corridors of the Super Star Destroyer’s detention level. Stormtroopers and Imperial Officers walking past marched quickly, spines stiff and eyes straight ahead as though trying to give the impression that they heard nothing. The two white-clad stormtroopers stationed on either side of the door to cell 3827 shifted nervously but dared not look at one another, nor at those who passed them.

Within the cell, the screams faded as Darth Revan twisted a dial on the torture couch where Breha Organa-Solo was strapped.

“That...that all you got?” Breha panted. Her pale face gleamed and her brown hair had gone dark with sweat. Blood from where she had bitten her lip trickled down her chin and her eyes were hollow, pained. They fell closed, fluttering in exhaustion as she sagged back against the couch. Still she managed a smirk. “I thought you were...supposed to be...some kind of Sith bigwig.”

“Not exactly a Sith, no,” Revan corrected in much the same tone that a school master might use to lecture their charges. “If you’re going to join me, you’ll have to learn to understand the nuances...but we can discuss that later, once you’ve had a chance to adjust your core ideals.”

Breha’s eyes shot open. “Join you?” she repeated. “Are you crazy? I’ll never join you.”

“We shall see,” Revan said lightly and reached for the controls of the torture couch once more.

“Even if I was interested in the Dark Side--which I’m not,” Breha said quickly, unable to stop her eyes flickering toward that black gloved hand and the dials that would send pain racing through her limbs again the moment they were twirled, “I wouldn’t join forces with anybody who’s as bad at strategy as you are.”

Revan’s hand lowered and the red helmet tilted curiously sideways. “Bad at strategy?” Revan repeated. “Interesting accusation. Do explain?”

Breha _ huffed_. “Well just look at you,” she said, jerking her chin in substitute for the sweeping hand gesture her restraints prevented. “You don’t know how to prioritize. Your ships are out there assaulting Coruscant, the very heart of the New Republic, and where are you? In here, focusing on one lousy prisoner instead. That’s bad tactics and you’ll end up paying for it.”

“My subordinates are quite capable,” Revan replied mildly. “Certainly they can manage to pound a defenseless planet into submission without my peering over their shoulders.”

“Until something goes wrong,” Breha said shortly. “Then they’ll be looking to their leader for orders, and where will you be?” She smirked. “Hanging around the detention block like a tiny useless lump of bad fashion choices.”

Revan laughed and said, “Coruscant has no real means of fighting back. This ‘assault’ is just to sow fear, little Jedi--the planet is already mine. And by the time I land, every single sentient living there will know exactly whom to bow before--”

A hollow thumping reverberated through the ship, making the lights flicker and Revan stumble. Spinning around in a swirl of black cloth, Revan started toward the door but it whooshed open before the Dark Lord had taken more than two steps.

“Lord Revan,” gasped the sweaty-faced Imperial ensign who all but fell through the opening, “it’s the Republic Fleet, my lord--they’re here!”

Breha broke into a rich, breathy peal of laughter. “How’s that strategy going?” she asked.

Revan turned back and gave Breha an inscrutable look from across one black-cloaked shoulder. “Ahead of schedule, it seems. I wasn’t expecting them for hours yet. How convenient, I can move up the time-table now.” There was no way to see Revan’s expression from beneath that weathered helmet, but something about the flicker of light against the smooth black visor gave off an impression of a grin. “I do so hate being bored.”

Beckoning the young ensign to lead the way, Revan turned away from the disconcerted Jedi and strode out of the cell. The furious insults Breha spat at the two departing Imperials were cut-off by the cell door sliding shut once more.


	16. Chapter 16

**NORULAC, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Han turned to gape at his wife, stricken, thinking the worst. It was Bail who croaked, “Rey’s in pain. She’s alive, but she’s hurt.” He managed to drag himself upright enough to look his father in the eye as Han turned back to stare at Bail. “I think...I think she’s been captured.” Bail forced himself to straighten and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. He didn’t try and free himself from his father’s arms.

Chewbacca let out a soft, anxious moan. Han shook his head. “Let the boy...let the boy think,” he said. “Don’t rush him.” He immediately followed this good advice by asking, “Bail?”

Leia’s eyes were closed too, her face strained; she didn’t seem to notice that she had lowered her hands in front of her, or that Lando was holding them both in one of his own while his other arm braced her around her delicate shoulders. His eyes were large with fear, the whites standing out starkly against his brown cheeks.

“Captured...being hurt. Tortured.” Bail’s voice was a mere breath and Han held his in response, as though afraid that even exhaling might be distracting enough to break the tenuous connection between the twins. “She’s on a ship...the Super Star Destroyer, I think. There’s someone…” He frowned, hesitated. “Someone there...someone Dark.”

His eyes opened. “I’m sorry,” he said. He was panting and his face was pale and drawn with strain. “It’s gone. We’re too far away for me to sense any more.”

“That’s--that’s fine, kid,” Han said gruffly. He cleared his throat and patted his son’s shoulder. “You did good.”

“We have to rescue her,” said Bail.

Han was already nodding; Chewbacca’s emphatic bark beat his reassuring “We will, don’t worry,” by milliseconds.

“What do you need?” said Lando. All the hesitation was gone now, his face and his stance both firm and ready.

Han shot him a dark look. “You sure you want to be tangled up in this?” he asked nastily.

No one paid any attention to Threepio as he started to say admonishingly, “Now Captain Solo--”

Lando met his glare without flinching. “Of course I am.”

“Changed your tune fast.”

“This isn’t politics, this is Breha. What can I do to help?”

“We do still need to contact the fleet,” Leia pointed out. Her face was pained, almost apologetic.

“Give me the coordinates, I’ll send someone I trust to carry the message.”

Leia didn’t look happy, but she nodded reluctantly.

“The rest of us need a way onto a Super Star Destroyer that nobody knew existed this time yesterday, right?” Lando continued.

This time they all nodded, Chewbacca underscoring the confirmation with a rumble.

Lando’s smile seemed to be all teeth. “Follow me,” he said.


	17. Chapter 17

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The bridge of _ The Malachor _ was a model of Imperial efficiency and conformity: gray uniforms bustling around gray deckplates, working on gray consoles, exchanging gray datasticks with gray salutes, all suffused with an eerie homogeneity of species--humans, every last one of them. For a woman raised in the bustling and colorful galactic melting pot of Coruscant, it was like something out of a dream...or a _ nightmare_, the same nightmare her mother had been fighting since she was younger than Breha.

The only things that didn’t fit the prim, stiff gray mold were Breha herself and her immediate captors: Darth Revan and his chrome-plated head trooper, Phasma. Revan led their little party onto the bridge, Phasma walking rear guard in stoic silence with a large blaster carbine held easily across her hips. Between them marched ten stark-white stormtroopers in neat two-columned lockstep, four ahead and four behind with two in the middle dragging Breha Organa-Solo between them.

Revan’s black cloak and gleaming black helmet swooped into the scene like a great black bird of prey. The Sith Lord was physically dwarfed by the towering stormtrooper commander but while Phasma was merely _ large _ the sense of menace radiated by Revan was infinite, its tendrils coiling off into every corner of the pristine Super Star Destroyer. Shadows unspooled like smoke, tipping the soft grays of Imperial design into darkness. Something like Revan had no place here, in this world of clean edges and firm lines and flat grays...except that wasn’t true, was it? There had not been a Sith, a _ true _Sith Lord, in the Empire in Breha’s lifetime, but it was by Sith that the Empire had first been founded. Having Revan on this bridge was a return to Imperial roots.

Breha, by contrast, did not belong at all. Her eye-smarting orange dress uniform blazed like a bonfire in the center of the subdued and streamlined bridge, but it was a small fire--solitary. Surrounded by grays and blacks and whites, smothered by the colorless Imperial shades. Smothered...but never subdued.

“Jedi can sense fear too, you know,” she observed, speaking loudly so that her voice would carry to the brisk officers working away dutifully as their motley little group marched past. “So that just leaves the question of whether these stormies here are more scared of you, or of me.” Breha was more being dragged than she was walking, her upper arms gripped tight by a pair of stormtroopers and her polished dress boots sliding and stumbling across the smooth gray deckplates. Most of her weight was being supported by the stormtroopers, not her own feet; otherwise she would have dug her heels in already.

Her lower arms were encased in a more elaborate set of binders than any Breha had ever seen. They pinched her arms together at the wrists then separated to cover them separately almost up to her elbows. The bright white plasteel surface seemed to be made of the same material as stormtrooper armor, but it was supplemented by coiled wires and blinking diodes. Every few seconds at randomized intervals they released a mild electrical charge, shocking Breha--breaking her concentration enough to prevent her from using the Force. She had to assume that that was the purpose for which they had been designed, and tried not to shudder at the thought of an Imperial storeroom full of the things, waiting to be clamped around the frontal appendages of every Jedi in the New Republic. 

She wondered if Imperial homogeneity extended to prisoner restraints; did they only have Force Binders designed for humanoids, or could Imperial engineering take other species into account as long as it was for purposes of subjugation? Either way, it wasn’t a comforting thought.

To assuage her own fears, she poked at the stormtroopers’ instead.

“It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a helpless prisoner in chains is enough to get your big tough soldiers quaking in their little white booties,” she taunted. “You sure you should trust them with me, Revan? I might shout ‘boo’ and send them running for an escape pod.”

The stormtroopers did not visibly react to Breha’s mockery, although the one on her right tightened his grip slightly. The other seemed to be trembling under her armor--but that might have been wishful thinking on Breha’s part; it was hard to distinguish motion that small from the regular rumble of ship’s engines under their feet. Breha wondered what would happen if she gave them a quick Force shove--but then the cuffs on her wrists sparked, sending current through her blood and making her body twitch. She grunted in discomfort that didn’t _ quite _cross into the realm of pain, but came very close.

Revan didn’t turn around to look at her. “They will do as they are commanded.” The Sith Lord sounded amused. “As, eventually, will you.”

Breha barked a laugh. “Small chance of that. You know they don’t call us Rogue Squadron because of how good we are at _ following _orders, right?”

Revan shrugged. “It hardly matters. Rogue Squadron is no more. And soon, your Republic will follow.”

Breha opened her mouth for a sharp retort but just then her escort jerked her to a stop at the front of the bridge. She could see the city-covered world below through the Super Star Destroyer’s large viewport. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at the battle filling the skies above Coruscant. “The Fleet!” she cried softly to herself, hope welling in her breast. “Jaen made it--or Lesso. Someone.” A crooked, cocky grin spread over her face and she raised her voice again.

“You’re in for it now, your Sithiness,” she crowed.


	18. Chapter 18

**NORULAC, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Lando led the way through the luxurious hallways of his resort at a hurried pace that had his glittering cloak flapping behind him like the bright after-image of a flare, dazzling the eyes. None of the Organa-Solos seemed dazzled, though; rather grim and fixated as they followed the former general. He was talking as he walked, easily balancing the smooth patter of his voice with the haste of his steps:

“--take you there myself. I’ll send word to the Fleet with someone I trust, you don’t need to worry about that, princess. They’ll be warned.”

“Thank you,” Leia said. She still looked torn between her competing duties as senator and mother, but she voiced no opposition to Lando’s plan.

“Who you gonna send?” Han asked. “They’d better be a hotshot flyer, there’s no time for dawdling.”

“Don’t worry.” Lando flashed his teeth in a short, sharp grin over his shoulder at his oldest friend. “I have just the pilot in mind, and she’s fast enough to give even your tall-tales a run for your money.”

“Hey,” Han protested, “I’ve never claimed so much as a klick more than I flew. You’re the one who inflates the numbers when you brag about--”

Chewbacca’s roar shut them both up, Lando smirking and Han scowling. Beside his father, Bail sighed and shook his head with an expression of long-suffering patience at odds with his youthful features. The doors ahead _ wooshed- _ open at Lando’s quick prodding of the lock sensor, revealing exterior air and another landing platform. A sleek silver ship roughly half the length of the _ Millennium Falcon _ sat docked at the far end, its crystal-clean carapace glinting like diamonds in the sinking afternoon light.

“Well regardless,” Lando said smoothly, leading the way to the elegant ship, “she’ll get the message there. And meantime, we’ll be on our way to--”

“Coruscant!”

A stunning young woman with purple-painted lips and wide eyes clattered down the spaceship’s boarding ramp. She was dressed even more elegantly than Lando in azure shimmersilk with silver chromasheath boots that reached nearly to her knees and a cerlin half-cape that concealed the slim blaster belted at her waist. Her black hair was pulled back from her forehead in abbreviated cornrows that ended in wide, gleaming golden rings before fanning out in a halo of unrestrained curls. She came up to them at a run, catching Lando’s arm to stop herself, but it was Leia on whom her eyes were fixed.

“There’s a battle. At Coruscant. It’s all over the Holonet.”

Leia nodded grimly. “We know, Stella. The Imperials ambushed the peace talks.”

“I’m sending you to get word to the New Republic fleet so they can stage a counter-assault,” Lando said, wrapping his arm around the younger woman’s shoulders and dropping a kiss to her forehead; Stella Calrissian was half his age and a handspan shorter but there was no mistaking the resemblance between father and daughter--and not just because of the cape. Both Calrissians possessed the same easy grace and confidence that had once conned an entire floating city into accepting Lando as their baron administrator and that currently assured wealthy vacationers that the Tendrando Mountain Resorts and Casino was the best place in the galaxy at which to be parted from their credits.

Stella ignored her father, shaking her head at Leia. “The fleet’s already there--that’s what I’m saying. There’s a full-fledged battle over Coruscant right now.”

Han and Leia shared a look as Bail gasped and Chewbacca barked an exclamation of surprise that all but drowned-out Threepio’s cry of, “Thank the Maker!”

“One of the Rogues must have got through,” Leia said. Some of the tension in her shoulders eased.

Han’s bleak expression perked-up hopefully. “Rey?” he asked.

Leia and Bail shook their heads in unison. “She’s definitely captured,” Bail confirmed.

Han sagged. Stella’s anxious frown furrowed further with confusion and dismay. “What?” she said. “Breha, captured? By the Empire?”

Bail shrugged. “Details are hazy.”

“We have to rescue her then,” said Stella.

“That’s the plan, sweetie,” said Lando, squeezing her shoulder. “The Organa-Solos, Chewbacca, and I are going to take the _Lady Luck _and go get the information we need to find her. Since the fleet’s already on station, I want you to stay here and make sure that our guests don’t panic and start cancelling their plans when they hear about--”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Stella interrupted, pushing his arm away and turning to walk back up the boarding ramp. “I’m coming with you.”

Lando looked stricken. “But...but someone has to manage things here…”

“That’s what we pay the staff for, dad,” Stella retorted, not bothering to turn around. “Rey’s more important.”

“It’ll be dangerous, though!”

Stella was already out of sight; her answering shout emerged from the hatchway: “Good thing the _ Lady Luck _is armed, then! Now stop wasting time and get onboard!”

Han raised an eyebrow at Lando. “You heard her,” he said, motioning toward the ship.

Chebacca barked agreement as Leia and Bail led the way inside, Threepio tottering behind. Lando, the look on his face one of resigned torment, shook his head and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this chapter when it first posted and are now wondering, no you haven't lost your mind; I recently re-wrote Stella's introductory description because I changed her "casting" to a different actress from the one I'd originally picked. I think I caught and amended all subsequent descriptions too, but if you run across any discrepancies know that this is the correct depiction and anything different is an erroneous leftover (please alert me if you do find any, so I can fix them!).


	19. Chapter 19

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

“Am I?” Darth Revan began to laugh. “Look again, young Jedi.”

The sharp words she had meant to speak died on Breha’s tongue as she stared out at the sight before her. The New Republic fleet had indeed arrived: bulbous and beautiful Mon Calamari cruisers, sturdy old Corellian corvettes, tiered Nebulon frigates, blocky dreadnoughts; darting amidst them all were squadrons of X-Wings and A-Wings and B-Wings and E-Wings, even a few aging but reliable Y-Wings…

And all of them so, so hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by the mass of Imperial ships opposing them. 

Breha had never seen an Imperial fleet like this. Had more ships arrived since she had been taken captive, or had she just been too focused on her immediate flight path to take-in the extent of the fleet before? She didn’t know. All she knew was that for the first time, she understood the phrase _ overwhelming Imperial might_.

This must have been what it was like for the old Rebellion, in the days when the Empire had been a galaxy-spanning enterprise opposed only by a rag-tag army held together by spacetape and spit more than by durasteel and laser charges.

Even that wasn’t an accurate comparison, though, because the New Republic fleet here in battle was no rag-tag ramshackle army of rebels...and yet still, they were overwhelmed by the Imperial forces around them. As Breha watched, another Nebulon frigate snapped in two, gouts of flame issuing from its splintered decks before it was wiped from view by a massive explosion.

Breha raised her cuffed hands to her mouth in horror. “No,” she whispered. “That’s impossible. The Imperial Remnant doesn’t have that much firepower…”

“It does now,” Revan said calmly. “And it is a remnant no more.”

Much as she wanted to, Breha couldn’t argue.


	20. Chapter 20

**THE SKIES ABOVE CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

A blue-painted A-Wing of Polearm Squadron spiraled toward the bridge of the Super Star Destroy, one engine trailing smoke and sparks as it arced on a suicide run toward the clear transparisteel of the enormous viewport.

Then three TIE-interceptors flashed past, and the A-Wing vanished in a cloud of fire and air. The TIEs swerved away, screaming in victory, and plunged back into the ferocious snarls of snubfighter dogfights that filled the empty space between the numerous capital ships.

Aboard the lead Mon Calamari cruiser, the _ Mon Remonda_, Jaen Vao watched in wide-eyed horror as yet another New Republic vessel gave way to flames and venting atmosphere.

The young twi’lek pilot’s sleek dress uniform was still rumpled from his time in the cockpit, its bright colors dulled by soot and oil stains. One of his lekku was wrapped in a greenish bacta-bandage and more bacta-gel glistened on the pock-marked burns that decorated the side of his face where one of his starfighter’s systems had shorted-out and started shooting sparks. His left arm was encased in a heavy gray bacta cast supported by a sling around his neck. It wasn’t his injuries that had put such a pained expression on his handsome blue face, however, but rather the state of the battle outside.

His hands itched for the control yoke of his fighter, anxious to climb back into a ship and join the fight; he didn’t belong on the bridge of a capital ship but out there in a snubfighter, taking damage directly to the enemy--and there were so many enemies out there to choose from.

Jaen was focused on the battle, barely paying attention to the frantic bustle of bridge officers and fleet communications passing between the terminals and sensor stations behind him--until he heard the words, “Signal all ships: Begin retreat. Make for rally point Cresh.”

“Confirm retreat order, Admiral?”

“Order confirmed, Lieutenant Celchu.”

The admiral’s voice was heavy, his shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his pale brown and blue uniform although he kept his grey head raised and his chin up, gaze fixed on the battle he was fleeing.

“No!” Jaen couldn’t stop the cry from bursting from his lips and once it was out, there was no reason to keep silent further; the damage was already done. “Sir please, you can’t--we can’t just abandon Coruscant! Can’t just let them take it--”

Bail was still down there, Bail and almost a trillion other sentients. Without the New Republic fleet, they had no defense capable of standing against the Imperial assault. Jaen was only a lowly Ensign, a transfer to Rogue Squadron so new that his unit patch was still as stiff and shiny as durasteel; he had no business criticizing any fleet officer, let alone the legendary Admiral of the First Fleet. But he couldn’t just keep quiet. If they retreated, if they let Coruscant fall…

The admiral didn’t admonish him, didn’t order him off the bridge; didn’t even turn to scowl at him. He shook his gray head without taking his eyes off the battle. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft:

“One of the first and hardest lessons I learned in the Rebellion is that sometimes you can do more good by turning back to fight another day than you can with a blaze of glory. The whole galaxy needs us, Ensign Vao, not just Coruscant. We have to retreat today so we can continue the fight tomorrow.” Admiral Wedge Antilles finally turned back to look at Jaen. His voice was kind as he added what sounded like a genuine, “I’m sorry.” He held Jaen’s gaze for a moment, his brown eyes weary below their thick brows and the fine wrinkles earned in a lifetime of service to the New Republic’s cause.

Lieutenant Celchu stepped up beside him with a crisp salute and said, “Admiral Antilles! The flight leaders report ready to enter hyperspace, sir.” A light-skinned young human woman with blonde hair twisted up in two tight buns, Celchu kept her expression stoic in the face of their grievous defeat, although her eyes flickered once toward a fresh explosion as the turbolaser gunners took out a pair of TIEs making a run toward the cruiser’s bridge. “Captain Tabanne of the _ Alderaan’s Vengeance _ says her hyperdrive is inoperable,” she continued briskly, “and has volunteered to fly an Ackbar Slash between the Super Star Destroyer and the _ Tyrannic _ to give our forces more cover for their escape…”

Celchu and Antilles walked off talking strategy, but Jaen stayed behind. His narrow brown eyes glittered with the reflected spears of turbolasers and engine flares as he stared helplessly out the viewport. Around him the business of the flagship’s bridge went on as they prepared for their retreat but Jaen, his warning given and his snubfighter too damaged to fly, had run out of duties to perform.

He stepped forward, lost and alone, and raised his uninjured hand, resting his blue fingers against the transparisteel as though he could reach through its clear surface and down to the planet below. “I hope you’re safe, Bail. I hope your Force is with you,” Jaen whispered as the blasts and bursts of battle gave way to the bright streaks of hyperspace.


	21. Chapter 21

**A FEW PARSECS FROM ANTAR, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Many lightyears away from Coruscant, Bail Organa-Solo was staring out through a different ship’s viewport at a very different Star Destroyer. This one lacked many of the weapons emplacements that the fearsome, wedge-shaped ships usually sported. It also lacked a TIE-fighter defense screen or any sign of Imperial insignia or markings. Its most distinct feature, however, was its color. 

This Star Destroyer was painted red.

“The _ Errant Venture_,” Leia said. Her voice sounded like a sigh and she shook her head, but there was no scowl on her lovely face--just a sort of expectant resignation.

Chewbacca _ wuffed _agreement from where he stood, crouching slightly to keep his head from banging against the cockpit’s sloping ceiling, at the back of the little group.

“The _ Errant Venture_,” Lando repeated proudly, as though he had invented the ship himself. He leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat and grinned at his friends. “Nowhere better in the whole galaxy to get your hands on information that nobody’s supposed to have.”

Chewbacca rumbled a litany of complaints. Han shook his head. “Nah, Chewie, I won’t make you come along.”

Stella started to ask, “Why--” but Han was already explaining:

“He doesn’t like the way the ship smells.”

Chewbacca barked an enthusiastic agreement, making Stella grin. “Fair enough,” she murmured, leaning forward to engage the ship’s automated landing beacons.

“Somebody ought to keep Booster’s goons from sniffing around our ship anyway,” Han said. “And you can keep trying the hypercomm while we’re gone.”

Lando looked like he wanted to protest--hypercomm transmissions weren’t cheap, after all, and Han’s propriety claiming of the _Lady Luck_ as _their_ ship needled at their ongoing half-joking feud about the _Falcon_\--but he swallowed the urge with a little shake of his head that unconsciously echoed Leia’s reaction to their first glimpse of the _Errant Venture _earlier.

The Calrissians and the Organa-Solos stared at the garish red vessel as their sleek little ship drew near, Stella’s steady hand piloting them into an open hanger.

Booster Terrik, a ruddy-faced, portly man in late middle-age sporting grizzled gray hair and a lush beard, was waiting for them by the time the _ Lady Luck’s _ramp lowered. Booster was dressed much less flamboyantly than his ship, his serviceable jacket and trousers of fine but understated quality. His most distinguishing feature was his left eye, which had been replaced years ago by a metal prosthetic that glowed red. Between his ominous eye, craggy features, and solid girth, he would have looked an intimidating figure in any environs--but this grim impression was undercut by the wide grin with which he greeted the new arrivals.

“My dear Calrissians! Why didn’t you tell me you had such quality guests aboard as Princess Organa and the mighty Chewbacca?” Booster bowed to the both of them, ignoring Leia’s murmured reminder that she was a senator now, then tossed a loose salute to Bail. “And a Jedi Knight, no less. I hope you’re not here for any law-abiding purposes, hmm?” Booster chuckled, earning a thin smile from Bail despite the strain of their circumstances. “Oh, and Han’s here too I suppose,” Booster added, a deliberate afterthought. Han rolled his eyes and fell into step behind the others while Chewbacca sniffed the air and grumbled something uncomplimentary before retreating back up the boarding ramp.

Lando stepped forward to walk alongside Booster, beginning to speak--but it was Stella on whom Booster focused, taking the pretty woman by the arm and adding, “Now my lovely Lady Calrissian. Tell me my dear, when are you going to put your considerable wits and charm to some real use and come work for me?”

“Modest as ever, Master Terrik,” Stella laughed while Lando bristled, torn between taking offense that Booster would make such an offer and wanting to beam with pride that his daughter’s talents were so widely respected--but before he could speak, Leia pushed past them all.

“We don’t have time for small talk,” she said coldly. “Breha’s in danger. We need to find her.”

Booster raised his eyebrows at her uncharacteristically brusque behavior, but nodded. “In that case, my services are at your disposal, your highness. Let’s go to my office--you can tell me everything there.”


	22. Chapter 22

**ABOARD ** ** _THE ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Booster Terrik, the Organa-Solos, and the Calrissians were all crowded into the cluttered environs of Booster’s office aboard his beloved _ Errant Venture_. He had won the ship long ago during a brief unofficial affiliation with New Republic forces against the Imperial Remnant, and at the end of the battle had managed to wheedle it out of military hands and into his own. Since then, he had converted the warship to a combination mobile shadowport, gambling den, and pleasure vessel that was well-known in all the shadier spacelanes. 

What was less well-known was the ship’s other role: that of a center of information gathering and brokerage. It was in that last capacity that the Organa-Solos and Calrissians were here; as Lando had said, there was no better place to start a search for information that no one was supposed to know.

Yet even at the center of this web of spies, slicers, and informants, Booster could still sometimes be surprised. Now he leaned back in his luxurious chair and whistled. “A new Super Star Destroyer,” he said, shaking his shaggy head. “That’s something you don’t see every day, all right.”

“Jealous?” Lando murmured.

Booster ignored the comment and the accompanying sly grin.

“We think that may be where they’re holding Breha,” Bail offered. At Booster’s sharp look, he shrugged. “We don’t have any _ reason _to think that, but if you were the Imperial commander and you’d captured a Jedi Knight of Rogue Squadron--”

“Not to mention the daughter of Leia Organa-Solo,” Stella put in drily.

Bail acknowledged her contribution with a reluctant nod. “--your flagship seems the most likely place to imprison her.”

“A fair guess,” Booster said.

“We aren’t here for guesses,” Leia snapped. “We need answers. Do you have any or not?”

See-Threepio’s head jerked around sharply so the protocol droid could stare at her. Even Han seemed taken-aback by his wife’s uncharacteristic shortness, but if Booster took offense at her lack of manners he didn’t show it. “I’m not sure,” he said, rocking to his feet. “But I think I know who you need to talk to to get them.”

As he led the way from his office, Bail fell into step beside his mother. “You’re usually more diplomatic than that,” he murmured.

The look Leia shot him in return was both sharp and haunted. “Your sister isn’t usually being tortured by the Empire,” she retorted.

Bail said nothing else but he did reach down and take his mother’s hand. She let him.

“Who’s your source?” Han asked from the front of the group, just behind Booster. He was trotting slightly to keep up; for all that Booster Terrik seemed inclined toward growing as round as he was tall, he moved with a speed and purpose that men half his age might envy.

The grin he flashed Han over his shoulder would have turned that envy to alarm. “It’s a group of stormtroopers,” he explained. “They pulled a _ Rand Ecliptic _a few weeks ago, ended up here. Oh, their Imperial credits aren’t worth much, of course,” Booster added with a careless shrug, “but how could a compassionate soul like myself turn them away after all they’ve been through?”

“How indeed,” Lando muttered from a few paces back, “especially when the information they’ve doubtless been giving away for free is worth so much more.”

Booster, unoffended, merely laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Farewell Jeremy Bulloch; nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.


	23. Chapter 23

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The cold hallways of the Imperial Super Star Destroyer echoed with the footsteps of thousands of stormtroopers and the brisk, muffled shouts of orders and directions as Revan’s Empire prepared for a ground assault on the New Republic capital. One small stormtrooper detachment was occupied with a different task: returning Breha Organa-Solo to her cell.

Where before Breha had been upright and sparking even as she was being dragged to the bridge, now she hung limp and listless in the grip of the two troopers flanking her. Their steps sounded in perfect unison with their fellows and with the tall, chrome-armored commander walking rear guard behind them, but Breha’s boots slid across the gleaming deckplates like so much lifeless cargo.

The troopers and their deflated burden marched past an intersecting hallway without sparing so much as a glance for the small, round, orange and white droid peering out at them from the corner.

BB-8 pulled back with a soft _ dwoooo _ as they passed out of sight down the ramp to the detention block. The little droid swiveled itself around and rolled off in the opposite direction--then pulled to a sharp stop as an even smaller, blockier mouse droid skittered into view.

The two droids paused for a moment, scanning each other; BB-8’s domed head rolled down for a closer look from its optical sensors. The mouse droid jerked backwards, then rolled back into motion, racing away down the hallway--until BB-8 beeped at it inquisitively.

The mouse droid stopped, revolved, and emitted a short burst of chittering.

BB-8 beeped again, a lengthier sequence this time, low-pitched and soothing. The mouse droid slowly inched closer. BB-8 lowered the volume and kept beeping, coaxing the mouse droid over--

And then, when it came within reach, the little round astromech extended a pincer arm and grabbed the mouse droid. It squealed and tried to reverse, but BB-8 lifted it off the ground. The mouse droid spun its wheels uselessly in the air as BB-8 extended the rest of its tools and got to work…


	24. Chapter 24

**ABOARD ** ** _THE ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

A plump, curvy Devaronian woman wearing a gauzy half-skirt over an abbreviated red jumpsuit led a small group of humans and one golden protocol droid down the converted Star Destroyer’s hallways. Her tawny fur rippled as she laughed, revealing sharp teeth and a deep set of dimples.

Booster, having an entire casino to manage, had turned his visitors over to one of his loyal employees--as loyal as credits could buy, at least--and it was the sharp rap of her silvery prosthetic feet against the scuffed deckplates that they followed now. Overhead, strings of small erratically colored lights twinkled, bring an oddly anarchic sort of cheer to the grim Imperial-style architecture. The colorful paint framing each gray door did much the same, scuffed as it was. The general style of this section of the _ Errant Venture _was akin to what would happen if a child were given a paintbox and told to color in the lines of a Star Destroyer, only to get bored halfway through and give up. It was, in its own way, oddly charming.

_ Charming _ being the default state of being into which the Calrissian family fell, Lando was charmingly flirting with their escort. “And how long has such a delightful lady as yourself been in the employ of that old scoundrel?” he asked, flashing one of his trademark-worthy smiles.

“Is that a delicate way of asking my age?” the Devaronian gasped, batting her eyelashes at him above a wide pout. “How rude.” She turned towards Han, walking beside Lando, and repeated the gesture. “Don’t you think he’s being rude, Captain Solo?”

Han grunted, apparently unaware of her fluttering eyelashes and the prominent furred bosom she turned to angle towards him; he stared straight ahead as he walked, the expression on his weathered face stoney. A half-pace behind him, his wife glanced at the Devaronian and her ineffectual flirting and for a moment, a wry smile flickered through the grim lines of her own set features. Leia’s eyes flicked back front and worry knotted her brows again as Lando attempted to draw their guide’s attention back to himself, saying, “You misunderstand, my dear; I was merely trying to gauge whether you’d grown bored with grumpy old Booster yet, and might be interested in an offer of more lucrative employment elsewhere…”

“I thought you and Booster agreed to stop trying to poach each other’s employees four years ago,” Stella interrupted, learning forward to interpose herself between her father and the object of his flirtation. Her expression seemed torn between amusement and exasperation. She rolled her eyes pointedly. “Leave Yon Riesel alone.”

“She doesn’t mind!” Lando protested. “You don't mind, do you?” Instead of answering, the Devaronian woman just laughed. “See?” Lando insisted to his daughter. “She doesn’t mind. Right?”

“We’ve arrived,” was all Riesel said, her blue eyes twinkling mischevieriously. She paused beside a closed bulkhead door that appeared identical to all the others dotting the long hallway, save for the dots and dashes of the number painted on its scuffed door in fading red. She gestured towards the pale plasteel as though she were a holo-presenter introducing a featured artifact or prize on a gameshow. “Can I assist you further? Lord Terrick wants you to have all the succor you desire while you’re aboard his vessel.”

“How generous,” Threepio exclaimed; the others ignored him.

“I’m sure,” said Leia drily, imagining how eager Booster probably was to have a witness in the room with them--not that there was even a faint chance he didn’t have surveillance on the room already but no matter how many holocams one had recording, the perspective of a live sentient was always worthwhile. “We’ll be fine, though. Thank you.”

She reached toward the button to open the door but Bail caught her arm.

“Mom, wait,” he said. “If these are stormies, they’re going to be terrified of Jedi. We should hang back and let dad and Uncle Lando ask the questions.”

“Senator Leia, if I might offer my communication services--” Threepio began to speak with enthusiasm, but the humans weren’t listening and he fell silent again in the face of their inattention.

Leia’s eyes narrowed in frustration but she nodded agreement to Bail’s words and stepped aside, letting Han lead the way inside. He squeezed her arm absently as he passed. Lando patted her shoulder reassuringly and winked at Riesel, who gave him a toothy smile in return.

“I’ll be waiting right here if you find you need anything,” she told the Organa-Solos and Calrissians as they filed inside one-by-one, the two Force users taking the rear. Riesel winked at Bail as he passed; the young Jedi ducked his head and blushed furiously.

The door slid shut on Riesel’s laughter.

Within the small, cramped, sparsely-furnished room waited five unfamiliar humans, all averaging approximately 1.74 meters in height and 80 kilograms in well-muscled weight, their hair close-cropped and their faces young. They ranged in coloring from lighter than Leia’s pink-cheeked pallor to darker than Stella’s beautiful brown dimples, but the moment they turned to face the door they snapped into identical parade-perfect posture, all five of them reaching in unison for blaster rifles they didn’t have.

“At ease, kids,” Lando said, holding up his hands in a half-joking imitation of a surrender gesture. He gave them a charming smile. “We’re the folks Booster commed to say he was sending down to talk to you. No funny stuff--just a couple of questions.”

“Who are you, that we should have to answer them?” a hard-faced young woman asked. The shiny old blaster-scar across her temple made her scowl look feral.

Lando drew in a breath, no doubt about to share his extensive (and extensively exaggerated) credentials, but before he could speak another former stormtrooper lowered his empty hands and stepped forward and said breathlessly, “Don’t you recognize them? That’s General Calrissian, and--and Admiral Solo!” The wide-eyed young man pointed at Lando and said, “He blew up the Second Death Star! And led the Rebel forces at the Rout of Iskalon! And Admiral Solo led the task force that--”

“Hey,” Han interrupted, raising his hands in an unconscious echo of Lando’s conciliatory greeting, “Hey, I resigned my commission, kid.” He looked as uncomfortable as though someone had dumped Klatoonian sandworms into his socks. “I’m no admiral.”

“Still--”

“Wait,” one of the other ex-stormtroopers interrupted, pointing past Han and Stella at Leia and Bail, in the back of the group, “if that’s Solo, then that means that’s--”

“Organa!” shouted the first speaker. She shoved forward before Han or Lando could react, diving past them as she pulled a vibroblade from her sleeve and thumbed it on, drawing back her arm in preparation for driving it into Leia’s chest.

“Oh my!” shouted Threepio, flinging his arms up in panic.

“Mit, no!” shouted the second of the speakers but Mit ignored him, barrelling forward.

Before she could take a third step, Stella caught the former stormtrooper’s outstretched arm, swung her hip out to block the other woman’s charge, hooked a fashionably-booted foot around her ankle, and flung her to the deck all in half the time it would have taken her father to narrate.

The vibroblade now in her hand, Stella pressed it lightly against the ex-stormtrooper’s neck and leaned down on the other woman’s shoulder with her free hand, pinning her in place. Lando gaped, then grinned proudly. Han already had his blaster in his hand and was holding it low and loose but unmistakably pointed in the general direction of the remaining stormtroopers.

A small smile tugged at Leia’s lips as she observed Stella’s work. Next to her, Bail raised his eyebrows and whistled softly.

Stella’s pretty smile didn’t reach her glittering eyes, which she held fixed on her captive, trusting the others to keep the woman’s comrades from causing trouble. None of the other stormtroopers put their hands in the air, but none of them reached for a weapon either; instead they watched, tense and anxious and clearly knowing themselves outmatched if not outnumbered.

“We’re going to ask some questions now,” Stella said calmly. “At least one of you is going to answer them, or I’m going to start by cutting this throat and moving on until I’ve found someone ready to talk. We have a friend in danger, and no time for Imperial games.”

The stormtrooper on the ground glowered and pressed her lips together so tightly the pink skin went white from the pressure. The other stormtroopers shifted their weight, as though bracing for a fight. Their faces shone with equal parts fear and resolution. The one who had spoken with such awe of Lando and Han’s military careers glanced frantically around the room, searching for an escape hatch that did not materialize. 

Han’s hand tightened on his blaster. Leia rested her fingers lightly atop her belt, inches from her lightsaber. Lando edged backwards, out of the line of fire, and fidgeted with his cape. Almost as practical as it was fashionable, the fabric was designed to deflect blaster fire but it wouldn’t do much against a direct shot, and would be all-but-useless against a high-grade vibroblade--or a low-grade fist. “Oh dear,” Threepio murmured, head rotating to look between Stella and Leia. “Mistress Leia, I’m not sure--”

Bail stepped forward, his face serene. “There is no need for that,” he said. Gone was the anxious tone of a worried brother; gone the sardonic drawl of a resigned son. He sounded calm and lofty, every inch the proper young Jedi Knight. “Jedi Organa-Solo and I can simply rip the information we want from their minds,” he continued lightly. “Much less mess--well, at least for Lord Terrick’s carpets. The mindscape is a different matter...but unlike throats, brains don’t leak when you tear them apart.”

He offered a small, cool little smile.

The former stormtroopers stared at him. So did Han and Lando. So did Stella. Threepio’s head swiveled faster.

“Can they do that?” Lando leaned over and whispered to Han.

The ex-stormtroopers cracked: “What do you want to know?” the admiring one asked.

“Please,” said the shortest of the group, nodding fervently, “we’ll tell you anything.”

Han grinned. “They just did,” he murmured back.

Lando frowned, then started to smile. “Pure Sabacc,” he chuckled.

Bail moved towards the stormtroopers. “Tell us where--” he began, but Leia stepped past him.

“Tell us about your new Emperor,” she said, her voice grim.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the earliest segments I wrote, back when I still thought I’d somehow be able to do a whole story in present tense. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t updated its tense to match the rest until I went to post it, so please forgive me if I failed to catch and correct everything. I flatter myself to imagine that you’d all rather have more bits posted sooner than have me squander time that could be better spent writing new scenes on fiddling around too much on the old ones, and will thus excuse any resulting tense errors/leftovers! (If I'm wrong don't tell me. Shh.)

**ABOARD ** ** _THE MALACHOR_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The massive hanger bay still showed scorching from where Breha had detonated her X-Wing, and its polished floor bore many scratches and dents from the equipment (and personnel) that had tumbled loose in the resulting decompression. Maintenance staff worked hurriedly to finish their repairs while deck officers and droids directed TIEs and shuttles to their berths.

Revan watched it all from behind an opaque faceplate and impassive mien. Those soldiers and workers who felt the Dark Lord’s eyes on them ducked their heads and scuttled about their assigned tasks with hasty efficiency. The young officer in charge of preparing a shuttle to transport Revan down to the planet moved in particular haste, sweat beading on his temples. His voice cracked as he snapped orders at the obedient regiment of stormtroopers filing inside. The only one involved in the process who seemed unphased was the bulbous-eyed black protocol droid waiting beside the ramp with the implacable patience of programming.

Commander Phasma possessed none of that, although only one who knew her as well as Revan would have noticed. She did not shift or fidget, but the way she stood in front of her detachment of stormtroopers, her blaster cradled close, telegraphed her anxiety to the Dark Lord--as did her presence in the Force, of course.

Revan ignored her, facing forward towards the restored magcon shield and the stars beyond.

The one fortunate thing about Organa-Solo’s explosive timing was that, with nearly a third of the _ Malachor_’s starfighter screen deployed as a show of force, very few of the snubfighters that usually docked in this bay were damaged. Revan was glad of that; while the forces of the Imperial Remnant were massive, they were not inexhaustible, and needless waste grated on the new Emperor.

So did needless fretting, but Revan had learned to live with a certain amount of that. It was the tradeoff one had to accept in exchange for absolute devotion.

“I should go with you, my lord,” Phasma said.

“No.” The answer came easily to Revan’s concealed lips.

Arguing with her master did not come nearly as easily to Phasma--save for those times when that aforementioned loyalty caused her protectiveness to overrule her obedience.

“Coruscant is not yet pacified,” she protested. “It might be dangerous.”

Revan laughed (not _ at _ Phasma; never _ at _ Phasma, foremost of all servants) the sound echoing sepulchrally from that ancient, venerable helmet that had once cut such a swath across the galaxy--and soon would again. “Your concern is touching, commander, but I can handle a mob or an insurrection or two. No, it is much more important that you stay on the ship to remind everyone here who their Emperor is now.” Revan turned to survey the obedient little troopers and mechanics and deck-officers and droids scurrying around the beautiful, stately grimness of the _ Malachor_. “Not everyone is thrilled with my new galactic order...not on Coruscant, no, and not up here either.” Light gleamed off that mythic T-shaped visor, sharp and thin as a lightsaber blade, as Revan tilted back to look up at the much taller trooper. “Your loyalty I know, however, will never waver.”

Phasma straightened her already parade-ground straight posture still more under the scrutiny, chest puffing-out with pride and helmeted chin raising. Her voice came out loud and fast, heavy with admiration and a desperate longing for approval alike. “I’d die a thousand times before I betrayed or failed you, lord!”

“My dear Phasma.” Revan reached up to pat her silver cheek absently. “Of course you will.”

The praise had Phasma near to bursting with delight beneath her armor, but Revan didn’t notice; just strode off briskly towards the shuttle that waited to carry the Imperial delegation down to the planet below. The vanishing flicker of the Dark Lord’s black cloak left Phasma--despite her imposing stature and gleaming armor and patient squadron of stormtroopers--looking somehow, oddly, small and alone.


	26. Chapter 26

**ABOARD ** ** _THE ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The former stormtroopers sat side-by-side in narrow, mismatched chairs dragged from the room’s various corners. Mit, the blonde one who had tried to stab Leia, sat with her arms folded and her chin lowered, glaring lasers at the lightsaber dangling from Leia’s belt. 

The lightsaber didn’t react. Neither did Leia. Nor did Stella, who sat on the narrow counter that abutted the aging food recycler. One leg dangled gracefully while she toyed with her new vibroblade, her dark eyes fixed on Mit.

Lando lounged against the wall beside his daughter, his handsome brow furrowed in dubious concentration.

Han stood on the opposite side of the troopers, his blaster now returned to its holster but his palm resting pointedly against the DL-44’s well-worn grip.

Threepio stood hesitantly a meter or so behind the others. His stiff posture radiated nervousness and he looked very much like a droid who had been ordered to step back out of the way but didn’t want to go too far lest his services be required.

Leia stood facing the former troopers, centered precisely at the middle of their cramped line. Bail hovered just off her shoulder where he was doing his best to look intimidating. He kept his arms crossed and his brow furrowed in an attempt to compensate for his generally amiable nature.

Leia didn’t need to make such an effort; the icy glower on her face would have (and had) moved Moffs to spill their secrets. It certainly worked on these stormtroopers.

“They showed-up two months ago,” explained the talkative trooper, the one who had been so impressed by Lando and Han. “The two of them. They’d contacted one of the Moffs--”

“Nobody ever told us which one,” the shortest trooper chimed-in and the others nodded agreement, all save for Mit, who only grunted.

“Yeah, whoever it was brought them to Imperial Command on Bastion, and the others fell in line fast.” The talkative trooper swallowed, his dark cheeks damp with sweat. “The ones who didn’t…” He shook his head. The weight of his silence was eloquent. The shortest trooper shuddered. Mit blanched and swallowed, as if fighting the urge to retch.

“Well,” the talkative trooper continued, “by the time Pellaeon knew what was going on, it was too late. Revan couldn’t be turned away, and the Empire had an Emperor again.”

“Revan?” Bail repeated, sounding scandalized; Leia shook her head once, tersely, and he fell silent.

The stormtroopers didn’t seem to have noticed the interruption; when they weren’t staring at the floor, or at Han’s blaster, or at Stella’s knife, or at Leia and Bail’s lightsabers, they stared into the distance as though they could look past the shadows of Booster’s cheap glowpanels and see their recent memories uncurling in the darkness.

“Phasma was put in charge of the troops,” explained the trooper at the end of the line. He grimaced. “She was...brutal.” 

“Well, that wasn’t new,” the talkative trooper clarified with a wince and a shrug, “we’ve all had brutal sergeants before, that’s practically the point of a sergeant, but she…”

“She was different,” affirmed the shortest trooper. “Scary. Everything was. It didn’t feel…” She glanced from Leia’s lightsaber to her face, then quickly looked away. “Right. It didn’t feel right. And the stories about Revan…” She shook her head and shivered.

The other ex-stormtroopers joined in the shuddering, even Mit. _ Especially _Mit.

“It’s been years since the Empire had any real Force users,” Bail muttered in his mother’s ear. “They wouldn’t be used to it. And after spending so much time and propaganda making sure their citizens and troops were all terrified of Jedi witchcraft, having to answer to a Dark Side version of their worst nightmares would have been more than some of them could handle.”

“Yeah,” the talkative topper confirmed, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, I guess that’s about how it was.”

Bail winced; he hadn’t thought he’d spoken loudly enough to be overheard.

The trooper didn’t seem to notice, continuing bleakly, “We talked it over and decided to get out of there. Before it was, you know...too late.”

“Liss was in pilot training before she got transferred to the troopers,” another added helpfully, pointing at the shortest trooper, who shrugged.

“Washed out,” Liss mumbled.

“Still meant she could fly a shuttle, so next time we were sent on a single-squad transfer we mutinied.”

“Sir,” Threepio protested, turning to face Han, “Imperial Remnant regulations dictate squads of ten members. There are only five--”

“I know, I know,” Han waved the droid off, scowling suspiciously at the ex-troopers. “Where’s the rest of your squad?”

“They chose to...to stay with the Empire,” the talkative trooper said. He looked uncomfortable; they all did.

“We shot faster,” Mit said gruffly. “So here we are.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. Lando swallowed, loud in the silence, and tugged restlessly at the intricate fastenings of his cape.

“What do you know of Revan’s flagship?” Leia asked.

“Flagship?” The troopers exchanged curious looks. “You mean the _ Malachor?” _ asked the talkative one. “The Super Star Destroyer?”

Leia nodded.

“That came with Revan. The Empire hasn’t had a Super Star Destroyer since the _ Reaper _ went down at Celanon.”

Lando’s anxious question of, “Where did Revan get it?” was met with shrugs.

“Where did Revan and Phasma come from?” Leia asked.

“Could be the Unknown Regions,” the talkative trooper offered.

“That’s a stupid rumor,” Mit growled. “Everyone knows they were hiding in the Maw.”

“No,” Liss interrupted, “I heard it was some secret base of Emperor Palpatine’s, somewhere deep in the Core Worlds--”

Leia held up a hand for silence. The troopers obeyed so quickly they might have been hit with Stun Blasts. Liss’s teeth actually clicked together audibly, like armored plates hitting the floor.

“So lots of rumors, no hard facts,” Bail observed.

“My favorite kind of Imperial,” Han muttered. He fiddled with the stock of his blaster.

“Sorry, sir,” Liss said, wincing.

“It’s not your fault.” Leia’s tight smile made all five former stormtroopers flinch and shrink in their seats.

“The Super Star Destroyer is definitely Revan’s flagship, though?” Han pressed.

“Yessir,” the talkative trooper said. The rest echoed his firm nod.

“That must be where they’re holding Mistress Breha captive, then!” Threepio exclaimed excitedly.

“Then that’s where we need to go,” said Lando.

“Is there anywhere else Revan keeps prisoners?” Bail asked, unable to keep himself from stepping forward, as though proximity to their answers might be enough to bring him closer to his sister. “Prisoners who are important, or special?”

The ex-stormtroopers shook their heads in eerie near-unison. “Revan doesn’t leave the flagship often,” the talkative trooper said carefully. “A few short inspections sometimes to...to make sure everybody is _ following orders_, sure, but that’s it.”

“And Commander Phasma is always on the _ Malachor _whenever Revan isn’t,” Liss added with a grimace. “She does most of the off-ship enforcing of Revan’s rule.”

“That’s interesting,” Lando muttered. “I wonder why Revan’s so attached to that ship.”

“If you had a Super Star Destroyer, would _ you _ leave it in the hands of your minions?” Han retorted.

Lando granted that point with a grudging nod. “So what’s our next move?” he asked. “That ship’s going to be a tough nut to crack, even for us…”

“I don’t suppose we could simply negotiate for Mistress Breha’s safe release?” Threepio hazarded. “The Empire might be reasonable...” Everyone else sensibly ignored him.

“I don’t care how tough it is,” Han said, his gruff voice cracking with suppressed emotion. “We’re getting her back.”

Bail reached over to grasp his father’s shoulder. “Of course we are, dad,” he said. “No matter what. That’s not a question.”

Stella slipped her confiscated vibroblade into her boot and looked up. “I can get us onto the ship,” she said. “I can even slice a few security doors onboard if I need to. But they’ll find us pretty quick once we’re there if we don’t have a guide to keep us from attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

The others variously winced, nodded, or murmured, based on their past experiences infiltrating Imperial vessels. There was a brief silence as they all ran through their mental rolodexes of potential allies, searching for someone who might be both capable and available for such a mission.

The silence snapped suddenly around three short words:

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone turned to face the talkative trooper. He sat with his hands clasped before him, shoulders hunched, head bowed low. He said quietly, “I’ll go. I’ll guide you.”

His fellow stormtroopers looked at him askance; the others exchanged glances overhead.

It was Han who finally spoke, his brow furrowed in concern. “What’s your name, son?”

“Finn,” the trooper replied. “Finn Ghanti.”

“Why do you want to help us, Finn?” Leia asked. Her voice was gentle. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

Finn flinched at being addressed so directly by the dainty Jedi, but he answered frankly. “I am--was--a stormtrooper, sir. Dangerous is something I’m used to. And...this Breha that’s been captured, you all care about her, right?”

“She’s my sister,” Bail said simply. He made no attempt to hide the hurt and worry he felt for his twin.

Finn nodded. He finally looked up, meeting Bail’s eyes. “My family all died when I was a kid. If there’d been somebody who could have helped save them, I’d have wanted them to try.”

Bail’s pained expression softened. “Thank you,” he said.

“Oh how courageous!” Threepio exclaimed.

Liss leaned in and muttered, “Finn, they’ll kill you--”

“They’ll try,” Finn corrected. He mustered a crooked grin. “And only if they catch us.”

“Let him go,” Mit growled. “There’s no arguing with him when he’s like this.” She looked furious, arms crossed so tightly in front of her that her muscles strained, and refused to lift her eyes from the patch of floor at which she now glowered.

Liss nodded sadly. “Be careful,” she said to Finn. Another trooper clapped him on the shoulder but said nothing. Finn looked nervous, but forced a smile.

“So...when do we leave, sir?” he asked Leia.

“Sooner the better,” Han started to say, but Leia was shaking her head. 

“Breha’s not our only concern anymore,” she said. “If there really is a new Emperor...another Dark Lord of the Sith...then we need to destroy this Revan, too.”

Han sighed. “I knew you were going to say that,” he muttered and pushed himself away from the wall. “Wait here, kid,” he said, pointing at Finn. “You too, Goldenrod--make sure nobody tries to pull a fast one on us while we’re gone. We’ll be back once we’ve figured out the plan.”

They filed out one by one, leaving the former stormtroopers alone with the startled-looking protocol droid.

“Oh my goodness gracious me,” said Threepio, glancing askance between the door and the not-quite-prisoners he had been saddled with watching. “Such responsibility! I’m not sure my servos can take it!”

The stormtroopers ignored the droid, staring at the door through which the Rebels had disappeared.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Liss muttered.

None of the others argued with her, not even Finn.


	27. Chapter 27

**ABOARD THE ** ** _ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Riesel was waiting in the hallway when the Organa-Solos and the Calrissians exited. She was slouched against the wall, toying with a small datapad. She looked up at their arrival, her lovely furred face bright and curious, but her expression drooped when Leia shook her head and brusquely motioned for the Devaronian woman to stay where she was while Leia led their little group down the hallway away from her. 

They stopped where the corridor split in three directions amidst a cluster of twinkle-lights and turned to face one another.

“So why’s the name Revan got you and Bail jumping like somebody just spilled raw tibanna on the floor?” Han asked, leaning back against the nearest bulkhead and folding his arms.

“Revan is--_ was _\--a famous Jedi Knight,” Bail said slowly. “And...a Sith Lord.”

“And we’re just hearing about them now?” Stella glanced over her shoulder, as though expecting Revan to come creeping up behind them.

“Revan died thousands of years ago,” Leia explained.

“After the Revanchist Wars,” Bail added helpfully.

Lando raised his eyebrows. “Let me guess,” he said. “Named after…?”

“Darth Revan, yeah.” Bail nodded. “It all started with the Mandalorian Wars, where Revan was this big hero who saved the Republic while the rest of the Jedi were preaching non-involvement...possibly for good reason, since in the process Revan fell to the Dark Side and became a bigger threat to the Republic than the Mandaorians had ever been. The histories are vague about when and how Revan died, though…”

“But if this was thousands of years ago, Revan definitely _ did _ die,” Han said dismissively. Then frowned. “Right? Not even Sith Lords can live _ that _long...”

Leia nodded. “Of course, but if this ‘Emperor Revan’ person is using the name, maybe they’re using more than that. And maybe there’ll be something in Revan’s history we can use against them.”

“So what’s our next move?” Stella asked.

“We need to split-up,” Leia said. “Somebody has to rescue Breha--”

“And that somebody’s Stella, me, and our friendly volunteer trooper,” Bail interjected. “You three,” he pointed as his parents and Lando, “and Uncle Chewie are all too recognizable to sneak onto a Star Destroyer.”

“Bail’s right,” Leia said grimly before anyone else could argue. “Besides, ever since we helped throw the Trandoshan slavers off Kashyyyk, you’d be hard-pressed to find any Wookiees in Remnant Space.”

“And while the kids are off playing hero?” Han asked. He sounded resigned, like he knew what was coming next and already didn’t like it. Stella blew him a kiss.

Instead of answering her husband directly, Leia turned to face Lando. “Lando,” she said, “you need to make contact with Tionne at the Jedi Center on Coruscant. Nobody knows ancient Jedi history better than her.”

“On Coruscant,” Lando repeated. “The same Coruscant that was just attacked by an Imperial Fleet. The same Coruscant that’s no doubt currently under an Imperial blockade.”

Leia nodded. “That one, yes. The Jedi will probably have evacuated the center and gone into hiding, but if anyone can get through that blockade and find a bunch of Force Users who don’t want to be found, it’s the second-best smuggler in the galaxy.”

“Second-best?” Lando protested, wounded indignation writ-large on his handsome face.

Han started to smirk, but Leia was already turning towards him to outline the rest of her plan. “You, Chewie, and I are going to Yavin IV.”

Han’s smirk vanished, replaced by surprise. “The Jedi Praxeum?” he said.

Leia nodded. “If they haven’t already heard, we need to warn them that there’s a new Sith Lord running around. That’s also where we’ll start our own research on this Revan imposter.”

“If the moon doesn’t have a blockade of its own by now,” Han said glumly.

Leia smiled sweetly. “Good thing you’re the other second-best smuggler in the galaxy.”

“Who’s first?” Han and Lando demanded in wounded unison.

“Chewbacca,” Leia said.

Han and Lando exchanged a frown, then a shrug. “Yeah, okay,” Lando allowed. Han nodded rueful agreement.

“We’ve only got one ship,” Stella pointed-out. “How are we splitting that up?”

“We’ll borrow some more from Booster,” Han suggested.

“He’ll be thrilled about that,” Bail murmured.

Lando grinned and turned to face his daughter. “You think you can sweet-talk him?”

Stella smirked. “Give me five minutes.”

Lando slung an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “You’ll do it in four,” he assured her proudly.

Han sighed, unhappy but resigned. “Sounds like we have a plan,” he said. “Kid, let’s go tell your new trooper friend all about it while Team Sweet-Talk gets to work on the old man.”

“And may the Force be with us all,” Leia said. She clasped her son’s arm, mustered an anxious smile, and strode away down the corridor. Stella and Lando followed, beckoning Riesel to join them as they passed.

As Han and Bail turned to return to where Finn and See-Threepio waited, Han frowned and glanced over at his son. “It’s just ‘cause we’re famous though, right?” he asked, something that was almost a whine creeping into his voice. “It’s not that we’re too old to infiltrate a Super Star Destroyer.”

Bail snorted. “Dad, I don’t think you’ll _ ever _be too old to go sneaking around where you’re not supposed to be, causing trouble.”

Han looked immediately mollified. In fact, he practically beamed with pride. “And don’t you forget it,” he told his son, then grabbed the young Jedi for a quick hug. Their heads were exactly even now, and Han couldn’t remember when his son had grown to match his height. “You be careful, now. Things can get messy when you’re infiltrating Imperial ships.”

“Don’t worry about us, dad. We’ll have Rey back in three tugs of a gundark’s ears. You just find us something we can use to depose this new emperor.”

“Don’t _ you _ worry,” Han said, tossing an absent-minded salute to Riesel as they walked past. “Deposing despots is your mother’s favorite hobby.”

The door slid open and they stepped inside.


	28. Chapter 28

**CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The sun was setting on Coruscant, its descent painting the city-planet’s thick, pollution-filled sky in vibrant shades of purple, red, and gold. Smoke still rose from the remnants of the platform that had been for one brief, shining moment, the heart of the galaxy’s hopes for peace. It wasn’t the only place on Coruscant currently wafting smoke into the air from scorched blaster-scars, nor the only place with multicolored blood dried upon its permacrete, however. Coruscant was a planet under siege--and without a fleet to defend it, a planet conquered as well.

Stormtroopers picked through rubble and poked at bodies, searching for signs of danger and life. All they found were blaster-burned corpses, boiled permacrete, and tattered bunting that had once streamed so proudly overhead. The eager crowds and hovering holodroids were gone, leaving only carnage and Imperial troops to share the ravaged platform now.

A jagged black ship that looked like what might happen if one attempted to carve a _Lambda_-class shuttle out of raw volcanic rock descended through the hazy atmosphere. Two TIE Interceptors flanked it, their pinched ion panels looking almost soft in comparison to its vibroblade-sharp edges. The few speeders braving the skylanes--mostly emergency vehicles or Imperial personnel--veered to give the new arrivals a wide berth.

On the permacrete below, a company of stormtroopers jogged over and stood at crisp attention as the shuttle settled on its landing gear. It landed almost in the center of the peace platform, where Pellaeon and Mon Mothma’s signing table had stood only that morning. There was no sign of that table now, nor of the treaty over which both had labored so hard.

There was no sign of Pellaeon, either.

The shuttle’s ramp descended and Revan walked out in a swirl of black robes, a gleaming black protocol droid trotting behind.

Revan paused to survey the world that the Empire had so recently reconquered in their new emperor’s name. Any thoughts that might have passed across that ancient mind were hidden beneath the even more ancient, red-fleckd visor that concealed the Dark Lord’s face from the world.

After a long, thoughtful moment, Revan started forward again and the stormtroopers fell into step behind. They walked as something halfway between an armed force and an honor guard for their diminutive Dark Lord. The two Imperial officers who jogged up and saluted their Emperor didn’t seem to know what to do when Revan’s only acknowledgement of their presence was a distracted nod; having no better course of action, they joined the procession at its middle, just behind the droid.

As Revan descended from the semi-melted platform to the elevated promenade that connected the celebration square to the heart of Coruscant’s political center, the first spectators began to gather.

They crept in slow and skittish, crouching behind rubble or lurking in doorways and at the corners of streets and buildings. Their eyes darted around nervously, uniting the disparate species of watchers into one homogenous sort of prey animal. Whatever colors and shapes they came in, these were Coruscanti citizens. And they were, universally, afraid.

_ Almost _universally.

One stout Gotal, braver or perhaps merely more foolish than the rest, scooped a broken chunk of permacrete from the ground and hurled it at Revan. “No more emperors!” he shouted.

Revan raised a gloved hand--not to catch the projectile, but to signal the stormtroopers to hold their fire. The chunk struck Revan on the chest and bounced off, clattering on the permacrete. “Hold,” Revan reiterated, voice tinged with amusement, as the stormtroopers tensed to shoot.

The troopers shifted uncertainly, but obeyed their emperor’s orders.

The crowd did not. As though that first blow had shattered the dam, more chunks of rubble and refuse followed along with more shouted threats and insults.

Revan stood calmly, watching without moving or flinching--and as the crowd realized that none of their improvised weapons were reaching their target, the shouting faltered and fell, replaced by a spreading hush.

In the air around Revan and the rest of the Imperial delegation, the scrounged detritus floated. Much of it spun lazily in place as though wafting in a gentle summer wind. Raven stood completely still, staring at the Coruscanti crowd, and they stared back with growing horror in their eyes and orbs and optical sensors. The protocol droid looked around curiously, as though attempting to scan for whatever mechanism was holding the rubble.

After a long, heavy pause, Revan let out a little _ mmm _ sound, something halfway between interest and amusement. Then the hand that had so easily held both the stormtroopers and the mob’s weapons at bay fell, and the improvised projectiles fell with it. Revan didn’t bother tossing any of it back at those who had thrown it, but the message was clear: Revan didn’t _ need _ to retaliate, or to attack in turn. No one there was a threat.

No one there mattered.

As the hollow echoes of the falling rubble faded, Revan started forward again. The stormtroopers stumbled a little over their own feet, then hurried to catch up. The faces of the two Imperial officers were wan and damp with sweat. The only one who didn’t seem bothered, aside from the Dark Lord of course, was the protocol droid.

It trotted after Revan as calmly as though it saw angry mobs dispatched with a single flick of four gloved fingers every day.

As Revan walked across the newly conquered world, silence spread and the fearful, angry Coruscanti citizens slunk away into the gathering dusk.


	29. Chapter 29

**ABOARD ** ** _THE ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The hanger in which the _ Lady Luck _ had docked was not one of the _ Errant Venture_’s private bays (intended by the designers for the use of ranking Imperial officers; now used by Booster to conceal ships or shipments that he wanted to hide from the rest of the crew or passengers). Nonetheless, Han and Lando passed unnoticed as they trotted down the ship’s ramp; anonymity was sometimes as good at solitude for maintaining secrecy, and without their old uniforms they were just two ordinary aging humans. On board Booster’s floating gambling den, even Lando’s glittering cape didn’t stand-out enough to catch the eye.

The soft warble of Chewbacca’s farewell did, but once the Wookiee finished waving and ducked his head back inside the hatch the fleeting attention he’d garnered dissipated.

Lando waved back and then slumped, turning to glance at Han. “How many times do I have to say it? I _ want _you to take her.” He hitched the strap of the satchel he was carrying higher on one shoulder and tugged at his cape so it could swing free despite his burden.

“She’s your pride and joy,” Han protested. His own simple vest posed none of the difficulties of Lando’s more fashionable ensemble, and he let his own satchel dangle loosely down his back. They fell into step together across the bustling hanger. “I just don’t feel right about it. We should switch.”

“A freighter with a hold full of foodstuffs is the perfect ruse to slip me onto Coruscant,” Lando insisted. They dodged around an elderly astromech and exchanged distracted waves with a visored mechanic shooting sparks off the landing gear of an even older looking shuttle. “Meanwhile you, Chewie, and Leia will fare a lot better in a sprightly, well-armed and better-shielded yacht like the _ Lady Luck _ if you’re going to be trying to outrun Imperials to Yavin and further.”

“Well...maybe,” Han allowed, his weathered face drawn up in a grimace.

“Certainly,” Lando corrected. “Besides, you’re _ almost _as good a pilot as I am, and you’ll have Chewbacca to help make up for your deficiencies.” He paused, as though wrestling with the words, then said, “I trust you to bring her back in one piece.”

Han grinned. “Keep talking, pal. We both know I can fly circles around you on my worst day.”

Lando snorted. “Sure,” he said. “Delude yourself if it makes you feel less outmatched…”

They paused at the open ramp to a blocky, yellow-plated freighter. It was small for a cargo-mover, only a little wider than the _ Millennium Falcon _ and about three times as tall. Its faded paint was dented, scratched, and edged with rust. Han’s expression sobered and he caught Lando’s hand in a tight forearm grip. “I’ll get her back without a scratch. I promise.”

“You’d better,” Lando said, returning the grip. His smile seemed forced. “I’m sending any repair bills to you.”

“Leia’s good for ‘em,” Han quipped.

Lando barked a weak laugh. “Yeah, nice to have someone respectable in the family, isn’t it?”

“Comes in handy,” Han agreed. They stood together a moment in silence, their faces--so different in form: Lando’s only faintly lined despite his age, handsome and mustachioed; Han’s craggy and clean-shaved--briefly wearing near-identical expressions of subdued worry. Then Han flashed a crooked smile and they stepped forward together into a tight hug. “Good luck, buddy,” he said, clapping Lando on the back.

“You too,” Lando said, his own smile falling into a concerned frown as they stepped apart. Han handed Lando the satchel he’d carried and turned to head back to the _ Lady Luck_.

From inside the freighter, a light voice said cheerfully, “Oh I say, Master Calrissian, have you looked at this vessel’s offboard control circuitry? Why, I daresay it dates from the age of the Old Republic! How charming to be on a ship with so much history!”

Lando grimaced. “Yeah,” he muttered, “charming. Hey!” He raised his voice and Han turned back to look, his eyebrows raised. “You sure about sending the droid with me? Won’t you miss him?”

“Nah,” Han assured his old friend, “you’ll need Threepio more than we will. He’s got all those nice, handy codes that’ll get you through any security the Jedi might have going.” He smirked. “Besides, I know how fast you get lonely when you’re by yourself. I wouldn’t want to take away your only company.”

“Oh dear, Master Calrissian!” Threepio’s distant voice echoed down the ramp. “This vessel doesn’t appear to have functioning vid-screens or holo-displays anywhere onboard. Well don’t worry sir, I have eight-thousand nine-hundred and thirty-seven audio entertainment files saved to my databanks. I shall assemble a selection of recitations to provide entertainment for your journey!”

Lando’s grimace deepened. “Thanks, buddy,” he called to Han, not sounding like he meant it. “So glad you’re looking out for me.”

Han tossed him a cheeky wave. “Anytime, pal.” He was still grinning as he turned away.

Lando sighed, shook his head, and slung the second satchel over his free shoulder. Then he climbed the ramp to his borrowed freighter. This was going to be a _ long _ trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In one of the upcoming scenes, there is to be a Jedi Character Cameo. I recently came across a character whom I really liked for the role. Unfortunately, the release of TFA predates the source for that character's first appearance so technically, I can't use them yet without breaking the conceit of this fic. If you have a moment, please help me decide on what to do by taking this quick one-question survey [HERE.](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/38CMFY9)


	30. Chapter 30

**ABOARD ** ** _THE ERRANT VENTURE_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The _ Errant Venture_’s hangerbays were foundationally no different from those of any other Star Destroyer--the aging ship had, after all, begun life as a vessel in the Imperial Navy--but the mismatched collection of ships, and even more mismatched collection of beings who flew on and maintained them, could not have looked less Imperial if they had been assembled for that purpose deliberately. Like Riesel, all of Booster’s crew wore bright red jumpsuits or uniforms to match the ship’s exterior and mark them as his staff, but like Riesel they had all made personal modifications of varying degrees that would never have been allowed upon a military vessel. Gloves, capes, belts, tunics, scarves, head-coverings, jewelry...anything that a sentient being could think to wear, they were wearing. (One petite Bothan even had a pair of gauzy decorative wings strapped to her back for no apparent reason other than that she liked the aesthetic.) And that was to say nothing of the guests aboard. 

They ranged from grimy down-on-their-luck smugglers and freelancers and grifters to high-rolling gamblers and wealthy members of the galactic elite. Leia Organa-Solo was the only high-ranking New Republic politician onboard right now, but that was only because they had all been recently gathered on Coruscant for the disastrous peace treaty and none of the rest of them had made it off-planet with the same haste. The lack of high-ranking Imperials could be ascribed to the same reason; while Booster didn’t much _ like _the Empire (he had spent several years of his life in an Imperial prison, after all, and he was the sort of man who held his grudges close) he wasn’t shy about taking their money--or double-charging them based on a combination of galactic exchange-rates and principle.

The sight of an Imperial shuttle tucked amidst all the merchant vessels and pleasure yachts and junkers that frequented the _ Errant Venture_’s hangers was not, thus, an unprecedented one--but it was still a sight that brought Finn Ghanti to a dead stop mid-stride.

“That’s our ship!” he exclaimed in equal parts shock and outrage. Stella and Bail, walking ahead of him, paused and turned around. Finn pointed a shaking hand at the waiting shuttle. “That’s the ship we defected in!” he explained. “We bartered it to Terrick when we got here! He said he was going to sell it, and the proceeds from that were what was paying our expenses!”

Stella snorted, shook her head, and started towards the ship again. Bail, looking faintly amused, waited while the distraught ex-stormtrooper worked-through his outrage.

“I bet the armor and uniforms he offered to provide are ours, too! That sneaky, no-good, deceitful, Hutt-licking--!”

Bail’s amusement spilled-over his mien of Jedi calm and he grinned crookedly, looking a great deal more like his father than anyone dressed in Jedi robes ever should. “From a certain point of view, that’s exactly the deal Booster made,” he said mildly. “It’s just that the ‘someone’ he ‘sold’ it to was himself.”

“I expect he switched out the transponder core already,” Stella called back to them over her shoulder as she mounted the ramp. “I’d say ‘assume’ but it’s never good to _ assume _with Booster. I’ll double-check it before we leave, make sure it’s something neutral so the Empire won’t be surprised by the ‘miraculous’ return of their commandeered vessel. But this is good.” She paused at the hatch to pat the side of the ship. “A genuine Imperial shuttle--and a recent one, to boot--will be much easier to slip past their security screen than a fabricated or pre-Remnant one.” She rubbed her hands together cheerfully, brown eyes dancing, and walked onboard. A faint sound of happy whistling carried out through the hatch to where Finn still stood gaping.

“Look at it this way,” Bail said with a shrug, “at least you know your armor’s going to fit. Imagine how much worse sneaking back to the Empire would be if there was chafing, too?” He clapped Finn on the shoulder (the ex-stormtrooper flinched at being touched by a Jedi, but only a little; he was too busy nursing his wounded feelings over Booster’s duplicity to remember how much he feared Bail right now) and followed Stella up the ramp.

Finn shook his head, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’ve heard better pep-talks from Mit,” he observed, eyeing the familiar shuttle with distaste.

Bail paused at the top of the ramp and glanced over his shoulder. “I can’t help it,” he said brightly. “Sometimes I’ve just got too much of my father in me to keep my tongue in check.” He smirked impishly and disappeared through the hatch.

Finn grimaced and shuddered. “Better than your mother,” he muttered, more to himself than to Bail, and trudged up the ramp after the Jedi--then paused, frowning, to glance back over his shoulder. There was thankfully no sign of the petite, terrifying Alderaanian princess--or her husband--but Finn grimaced anyway. “I think,” he added dubiously, and finally stepped aboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to sincerely thank everybody who assisted with the survey about the Jedi Cameo last chapter! I've actually since thought of a scene in the second movie that I like for that character _even more_, so that issue is now resolved -- but that leaves us with one unused Potential Cameo Spot yet in this story! If you have a favorite Jedi (or even just a favorite species, etc) you would like to suggest for the role, from either new canon or old, please don't be shy!


	31. Chapter 31

**ABOARD ** ** _THE CRYSTILIUM_****, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The stolen Imperial shuttle sped away from the _ Errant Venture _ on glowing blue sublights. Behind them, two other vessels--the _ Lady Luck _ and a dingy, yellow-plated freighter--emerged from a different hangerbay in the vibrant red Star Destroyer and curved away on their own disparate, desperate missions.

Finn did not watch them go.

Being back in this shuttle, being back in the insulated black undersuit that was standard-issue wear beneath stormtrooper armor, was comforting in its familiarity and simultaneously distressing for the same reason. Finn could feel himself settling back into old patterns, old training, old thought-processes. He was tempted to let it happen. Riding in cramped confines with a Jedi (_a Jedi!_) was distressing enough to have his heart pounding in his throat, and he kept shooting nervous glances at Bail when he thought no one was watching him. Letting himself sink into the reassurance of habit was tempting--but at the same time, repugnant. He had _ left_. He had _ defected_. He wasn’t a stormtrooper any longer and, if he didn’t yet know exactly what that made him now, he knew what he _ wasn’t_.

So he fought the urge to fall back into the mindset of an obedient, unquestioning trooper by saying, “So what’s the plan, then? How are we getting onto the Super Star Destroyer?” as though he always discussed battle strategy with such notable personages as the daughter of a legendary Rebel general and the son of the fearsome Organa-Solo. (As though he was used to speaking to a Jedi, and the very thought of that _ thing _hanging from Bail’s belt didn’t make his skin crawl.) Instead of following regulation and strapping himself into the crash-restraints, he perched half-off his seat and leaned forward to look at Stella sitting in the pilot’s chair in front of him.

He tried not to let his eyes drift sideways to where Bail sat in the co-pilot’s seat, studying the ship’s diagnostic read-outs as they coasted away from the _ Errant Venture _and prepared to make the jump to hyperspace.

Stella began to say, “We’re heading to Yaga Minor--”

“Because the core shipyard of the Imperial Remnant will be so much easier to break into,” Bail interrupted in a mutter without looking up from his datascreens.

Stella shot Bail an amused smirk that he didn’t see before turning back to Finn and explaining, “Because I know somebody there who will do me a favor, no questions asked.”

Finn raised his eyebrows. “Including sneaking us onto the Emperor’s personal Super Star Destroyer?” he said dubiously. “They better be somebody really highly ranked…”

“She’s not in the Imperial military,” Stella said. Her smile turned predatory and her dark eyes glittered. “But she does help build and design their best ships.”

“Oh,” said Finn, realization dawning across his broad, handsome features. He nodded. “Yeah...that’ll work.”

Stella grinned and reached forward to pull the lever that would send their small shuttle into the swirling transit of hyperspace, and a moment later they were gone.


	32. Chapter 32

**CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE: **

Night had come to Coruscant’s main square, although it was hard to say whether night and day truly had any meaning on the great city-planet; most of its levels were so cut-off from the sun that they operated by artificial illumination regardless of the time of day, and the disparate species who made their home in its towering buildings and cavernous warrens had as many different rest-cycles as there were stars above its thick, polluted clouds.

Even amidst the bright and blazing lights of nighttime on Coruscant, one section of the city stood-out tonight as especially luminous: the Senate Plaza which housed the buildings of the High Courts, the Library of the Republic, the City Municipal Authorities Building, and of course the great Senate Building itself.

The Senate Building was in many ways the heart of Coruscant, and it looked it: a mixing of architecture and affectations both old, new, and newer. The voluminous structure combined aspects of its Old Republic origins, its austere Imperial revision, and it's comparatively recent New Republic redesign in a semi-cohesive juxtaposition of past and present. Sleek gray corners met soft brown curves met faded old carvings, the latter having been meticulously restored from their period of Imperial defacement. It was a hodgepodge of a building for a planet that held and represented a hodgepodge of people: a galaxy’s worth of species and planets all packed together in one wide, crowded chamber. The current Senate--and its environs--was half the size it had been in the opulent days of the Old Republic, and a dozen times larger than it had been during the constrained, tyrannical years of the Empire. It was an almost liminal space, holding vague impressions of the past alongside even vaguer hopes for the future.

Today, the past had come back with terrifying clarity.

The cavernous chamber was emptier than it usually was during a formal session, but there was nothing formal about today’s meeting. The senators--like all of Coruscant--had been planning to spend today in celebration and spectacle revolving around the long-awaited signing of a peace treaty with the Imperial Remnant. Those senators who had been chosen to attend the treaty-signing in person had scattered afterwards--those who had survived, at least; many had not--some going to ground and some attempting to flee the planet. Others had congregated here, along with a hefty selection of those senators who had not merited an invitation to the physical ceremony, and a number of aides and clerks and assorted political analysts.

What the Senate could do in the face of the Imperial conquest was hard to say, but this was the room from which they were used to making their most important decisions. The familiar trappings of power were a heady lure in the face of fear--or maybe it was simply habit to run to the Senate when chaos struck. They were supposed to be safe here, after all. They were supposed to be _ important_.

When the Galactic Senate had been reformed in the wake of the New Republic’s conquest of Coruscant, it had been structured with an eye towards eliminating the habits of deadlock and inaction that had characterized--and hastened--the last days of the Old Republic. No longer was every world represented individually; rather each sector delegated a single senator to speak for the whole, similar to--but less restrictive than--the days of Imperial control. 

How those sectors chose to select their representative varied according to the preferences of their inhabitants. Smaller, more sparsely-populated sectors that sported only one or two habitable worlds might simply have straight majority-rule elections; systems with several populated planets might operate under a lottery system or a cyclical schedule to ensure every voice had a chance to be heard. The Calamari sector, for instance, which included not just the wealthy oceanic world of Dac but also many smaller planets and colonies of Dac’s neighboring systems, elected two senators who traded-off representative duties. Daccian law did not stipulate that one senator must be a Mon Calamari and one a Quarren, but that was both the purpose and result of the arrangement. This balance was considered a major contributor to the current harmony between the two oft-opposed species.

Other planets and sectors had their own methods for maintaining equanimity within their borders, and the New Republic interfered in the internecine disputes of its member-states as rarely as possible. Autonomy and self-governance, within the parameters of certain galactically-recognized rights and responsibilities of all sentients, were watchwords of the New Republic’s charter and its governance focused more on setting fair-trade and treatment standards and settling commerce, trade, or property disputes between its member-states than it did on dictating its diverse citizens’ daily lives.

If the Empire truly intended to seize galactic control once more, that halcyon hands-off approach seemed poised to change.

Now senators and their aides clustered together in anxious, fearful knots of chatter and confusion, discussing the possible impending upheaval. At least half of the chamber’s booths stood empty, their usual occupants either in hiding or in flight, or dead on that permacrete platform where peace had been so briefly within reach. The building’s usual security detachment--blue-clad guards of an uncountable number of species, all armed with stun-pikes and energy shields--hovered anxiously near walls and doors, eyes darting around in search of threats.

They did not have to search far: several of the round chamber’s doors burst open with showers of sparks and smoke in near-unison. Iconic white-armored stormtroopers marched in, spraying blasterfire as they advanced.

The shots were aimed high and untargeted, clearly meant more to terrify and pacify than destroy; nonetheless, a few luckless sentients fell--some with screams and some in chilling silence--beneath the onslaught. The senate guards stalwart enough (or foolish enough) to charge the stormtroopers were quickly slain, the intensity and precision of the blasts converging on them enough to overwhelm or outflank their shields.

The Empire’s entrance was accompanied by screams, but soon enough those quieted to whimpers and curses as the implacable stormtroopers mowed-down anyone who stood in the way of their brutally-enforced sense of order. They herded senators and their staff ahead of them, shoving the hapless and helpless citizens into booths and out of their way. The dead were kicked aside or marched over. The stormtroopers advanced with blank-faced inevitability, finally filing into neat lines along the walls. They stood at mute, deadly attention, their blasters charged and hot.

Then Revan walked in.

The Imperial officers and protocol droid trailing the Dark Lord through the main entrance seemed like little more than afterthoughts. More stormtroopers followed Revan, the quintessential Imperial shock-troopers taking up flanking positions along the back wall.

Revan walked up to the central podium from which Mon Mothma and the various other sentients who had served the New Republic as first Provisional Council Heads and later Galactic Chiefs of State had once done so much work to maintain the New Republic’s hard-fought peace and freedom. Mon Mothma would never make another speech there or anywhere, and at this grim and bloody moment it seemed unlikely that any being bearing the title Chief of State ever would.

They had an Emperor, now.

That their Emperor was a good fifteen centimeters shorter than the being for whom the podium had last been calibrated hardly seemed to matter; Revan was short, but somehow seemed to fill all available space. The stark lights of the Senate Chamber seemed to dim as two slim, black-gloved hands raised to draw what few eyes had not already turned the Emperor’s way.

The noise within the Senate Chamber dropped, as though cut-off by closing blast doors, to a tense susurration of shifting fabric and murmured voices. No one could see it behind that blank mask, but Revan might have smiled then. Something in the way that ancient helmet tilted seemed to imply a smile was happening beneath it--but a smile did not, of course, necessarily convey approval. Or even pleasure.

“Senators and citizens of Coruscant and beyond,” Revan said, “my greetings.” The Senate Chamber’s audio projection system enhanced the volume of that soft, mechanically-filtered voice, sending Revan’s words echoing around the wide domed room. Holocam drones flocked as their programming detected a speaker worthy of broadcasting and they hovered at various heights in a scattered semi-circle around the Dark Lord, recording and projecting Revan’s speech--and the senators’ reactions--to the rest of the city-planet and to the myriad systems and sectors beyond that fell under New Republic governance.

At least for now.

“I am Revan, a name that will be familiar to few of you,” Revan continued calmly. “That hardly matters; more familiar will be my new title: that of Emperor. As you have seen,” Revan gestured idly towards the ceiling of the chamber and the Star Destroyer-filled skies beyond it, “my forces are no mere Remnant to be easily dismissed--or negotiated with. There will be no peace treaty. There will be no Imperial concessions. We are in control now...and you may begin making your surrenders immediately.”

Sounds of protest rose from the gathered senators but they were soft, scattered voices; no one there dared raise an objection loud or defiant enough to draw Revan’s merciless gaze their way.

Revan’s mask tilted further.

“I expect many of you to resist at first, of course; my Empire is not such an overwhelming military force as to possess the firepower necessary for me to conquer the entire galaxy planet by planet, not in any reasonable time-frame...I admit that readily. _ But_.”

Revan chuckled then, a soft sound made all the more terrifying for its gentleness--a gentleness that evaporated on Revan’s next words, spoken low and dark and ominous: “I have killed worlds before.”

It would have seemed impossible for any room in which so many sentients were congregated to become quieter than what the Senate Chamber was already, but somehow, a deeper silence spread. Even the stormtroopers, scanning the room for signs of trouble, stilled.

“The first one was difficult, true,” Revan continued, once again speaking in a light, almost friendly tone. “The second, less so...and by the tenth, I had to go out of my way to find little games to keep it interesting.” The chuckle returned, but there was nothing gentle about it now. “You don’t want to be the world that catches my interest next. I promise you that.”

Revan leaned forward, black gloves suddenly gripping the too-tall sides of Mon Mothma’s podium, and turned slowly from side to side to survey the assembled senators. “So resist me if you like. I’m not going to stop anyone here leaving, or making a holo-call to contact their homeworld. I’m not even going to tell those of you watching now from those worlds not to gather your weapons, plot your alliances, prepare to fight me. Do as you will...but know the price that doing so will cost you.” The pale plastisteel of the podium creaked beneath Revan’s durasteel-tight grip. “Ask yourself if you want to be the next Tund, the next Alderaan?” With every planet named, Revan’s voice seemed to get heavier, darker, falling into the silence of the Senate Chamber like rocks into a still pool. “The next Dentaal, the next Varl...the next Malachor V?”

The quiet that followed Revan’s words was thick and weighty and it seemed to spread like shadows across the crowded Senate Chamber. Revan let it sit and settle, cold and clammy, in the bones of the listening senators for several moments before finishing coolly:

“I came to Coruscant not because there is anything of value to me on this world. I do not need your skyscrapers, your citadels...even your government secrets locked-away in your central computer core.” Revan shrugged. “Oh, make no mistake, I’m going to take them--but I don’t _ need _ them. I have everything I need already.” One gloved hand released the podium, leaving cracks behind in the plastisteel, in order to wave at first the distant stars, then Revan’s own chest, then finally the gathered lines of white-clad stormtroopers. “My ships, my power, my loyal forces…” Revan said, sounding cheerful even through the filter of that terrifying mask. “But Coruscant is the heart of your New Republic, so that is where I stand to drive my offer home, like the fatal thrust of a vibroblade: _ surrender_.”

Revan straightened, hands lifting from the dented podium to spread wide in a gesture that seemed less like a politician presenting a proposal for consideration and more like the arms of some mythical beast reaching out to grasp and eat the world. “This offer is not a negotiation,” Revan continued lightly. “It is not even a declaration of war. This is your one chance to choose, people of the New Republic: you can give yourselves to my rule, to my Empire...or you can die.”

The exclamations that followed were shrill and shrieking, but still more subdued than such an outrageous statement merited. The remaining members of the Senate were shaken, both from the loss of so many of their fellows and by the sheer intensity of the presence of the Dark Lord. Only a few of those beings serving in the Senate today had ever met Darth Vader, had ever met Emperor Palapatine; few had even met Admirals Thrawn or Daala face-to-face. They had no way of conceptualizing the power or the darkness in the short, armor-clad figure in front of them...but they could _ feel it_. And they were afraid.

Revan stepped away from the podium, leaving finger-shaped dents behind. Cracks splintered out from the dented hollows, spreading across the sleek surface of the elegant plastisteel like a purella’s webs stretched between tree trunks. Spreading like the fear now seeping through the watching senators and spectators both here and throughout the galaxy.

The sleek, bulbous-headed black protocol droid stepped forward to take the Dark Lord’s place. “Please use your voting interfaces to declare your intentions,” the droid said in its buzzy, mechanical voice. “An affirmative vote will be recorded as an unconditional surrender on behalf of your representational sector. A negative vote will indicate a rejection of Emperor Revan’s offer. Should you need to consult with your local sector leaders, please select the ‘abstain’ option. Should you have further questions about Emperor Revan’s offer you may transmit those to me now, although I caution you that per the emperor’s orders, I am not empowered to negotiate any additional terms…”

Revan watched, arms folded, in calm silence for several minutes as chaos unfolded across the Senate Chamber. The high-ceilinged room began to fill with noise again, desperate and distraught, as senators and aides alike screamed and squawked their disbelief and their dismay. Unperturbed, the protocol droid catalogued each vote as it was registered by the system: surrender after surrender as first one senator and then another slowly slumped in despair...or refusals as others fled, making the reckless choice to fight and defy their new Emperor.

Revan hardly cared which they chose. A few would think themselves brave, of course; a few always did. But once the first few of those stupid, honorable fools saw their worlds slagged beneath Revan’s implacable and merciless might, the rest would start to rethink their bravery. One did not need to conquer an entire galaxy to rule it; one merely needed to make it afraid.

And Revan had had a long, long time to master the art of fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick Note: I hand my computer off to the repair folks tonight to hopefully figure out what's wrong with it (cross your fingers that it's just a fan!) and what needs to be done to get it fixed. Depending on how that all plays out, updates might slow down for a bit. Don't worry, I'll be back with the rest of the story as soon as possible--the question of _when_ that will be just isn't something that's within my power to determine. Sorry!


	33. Chapter 33

**YAVIN IV, 40 YEARS ABE:**

The world of Yavin was a gas giant, enormous and vibrant. It filled the black space in front of the _ Lady Luck _ as easily as some suns. The sleek little yacht gleamed bright in the reflected light as it curved around the planet towards one of the moons on the far side: a lush jungle world, rich in both plant and animal life and, until a few years ago, uninhabited by any sentient beings.

Now Yavin IV was home to the Jedi Praxeum, a school for Force Users founded by Leia’s brother in his quest to restore the Jedi Order to the galaxy. In Luke’s absence, the school continued its mission to both train and nurture new Jedi as well as to research secrets of the Old Jedi Order lost in Palpatine’s purge. Leia did not want to be the one to bring them the news that they once again faced danger from the Empire, but someone had to warn them--and she needed to know what their archives contained about Revan.

“All clear so far,” Han said. “Looks like we beat the Empire here--if they’re going to bother coming at all.”

Chewbacca’s grim growl left no doubt that the Wookiee believed it was only a matter of time. Leia nodded her agreement and leaned forward to activate the ship’s comm.

“Attention Jedi Praxeum, this is Leia Organa-Solo aboard the _ Lady Luck_. Requesting immediate docking clearance--and an emergency meeting with today’s duty instructors.”

The response came back almost immediately, a light voice that sounded too young for the danger bearing down on them: “Permission granted, Senator Organa-Solo, and welcome. Praeceptor Cilghal and Knight Zekk will meet you on the landing platform.”

“Thank you,” Leia said and the _ Lady Luck _ descended.

It was a familiar journey to the three sentients onboard: not only had the ruins of the great Massassi temple been the staging ground of the fight against the First Death Star as well as the first of many Rebel Alliance bases that Han and Chewie would temporarily call home over the course of the Galactic Civil War, but all three of them had returned to the ruins on multiple occasions over the years to assist Luke Skywalker in the formation of his Jedi school, which Han and Leia’s own children had eventually attended. Settling the _ Lady Luck_’s landing gear on the broad stones that served the temple as both courtyard and landing platform did not quite feel like coming home, but it was close.

The familiar faces walking towards them reinforced that impression. 

Cilghal was a beautiful Mon Calamari woman with mottled brown and orange skin and large, vibrant flame-colored eyes. She was clad in layered robes of varying light browns, including a long tabard that sported a complex pattern of embroidery that, while barely visible to human vision, would doubtless be a vibrant kaleidoscope to Mon Cal eyes. The lightsaber hilt that dangled from her belt was longer than usual, to accommodate her wide flipper-like hands. She kept one eye on the students and teachers bustling around the temple’s outer courtyard while she swiveled the other one forward to look at Han, Leia, and Chewie. Her wide, mournful mouth curved up in a welcoming smile.

A pace behind her walked Zekk, a tall and youthful human male whose long black hair was drawn back from his face in a loose ponytail. He was dressed in plainer robes of darker brown over a simple tunic and boots. His own lightsaber looked like it had been cobbled-together from bits and pieces scavenged from broken spaceships and speeders but there was an odd elegance to its clunky design, making it appear more like a found art object than a weapon. His dark eyes gleamed with amiable intelligence but his handsome smile faded as he sensed the tension coming from the new arrivals.

Cilghal inclined her bulbous head gravely. “Welcome, Leia. Han. Chewbacca.”

Zekk skipped over the social niceties of greetings and went straight to asking, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the Empire, kid,” Han said with a sigh. He was wearing the worn, rumpled vest and trousers that were so ubiquitous to his daily appearance that they seemed more like a uniform than any he’d ever donned for the New Republic military, his ever-present DL-44 belted at his side and the Corellian Bloodstripe running bright and vibrant up his legs, but something about his posture seemed older. It wasn’t the grey of his hair but the slump of his shoulders that made him for once seem like the full weight of his years was pressing down on him. “They scrapped the peace treaty.”

“No!” Cilghal exclaimed, one wide hand pressing to her mouth in horror.

“We thought it was another problem with our comm-booster when the ceremony cut-out,” Zekk said, more to himself than the others. “You know what a pain it is keeping that thing running strong enough to punch-through both our atmosphere and the interference from Yavin. We never suspected the Empire would…”

Chewie nodded and warbled a complicated string of barks and growls that made both Jedi wince. He, at least, looked as young and strong as ever, with his bowcaster slung at his back and his vibrant brown fur ruffling slightly in the faint jungle breeze.

“A Super Star Destroyer?” Cilghal repeated, her gravelly voice alarmed. Both her eyes were on the new arrivals now, her divided gaze swiveling rapidly between the three of them as though searching for some sign that they did not mean what they said.

Leia offered no such false hopes. “It’s worse than that,” she said grimly. Gone was her gauzy white cloak and her elegant buns; gone too were the bacta-patches over the bloody scrapes she had acquired in the attack on Coruscant. The simple white gown she still wore, smudged as it was, was now accented with sturdy boots and a plain leather belt at which hung her own lightsaber, while her long hair had been braided into a simple crown loop. Her half-healed injuries vacillated between the shiny pink of new flesh and the dull brown of old scabs. Her lined face nonetheless still looked as fierce and determined as it ever had on the Senate floor or when trading blasterfire with Imperial troops. “There’s a new Emperor--a Sith Lord.”

“No,” Cilghal said again, her hand falling and both eyes tilting to fix on Leia.

“Who?” Zekk asked, his eyes wide.

Chewbacca gave a short bark in answer.

“Revan?” Zekk repeated. He glanced sideways at Cilghal. “But isn’t that…?”

“Someone is using the legend of Revan as a mask?” the Mon Cal Jedi speculated.

Leia nodded. “That’s what we figure. The name is too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

“And it’s not like it’s _ actually _ Revan,” Han said with a grin. He stuck his thumbs in his belt and forced a chuckle. “That would be _ crazy_.”

Chewbacca grumbled something long-suffering and Han shot his longtime co-pilot a dirty look. Zekk snorted, then wiped his face back to careful calm blankness when Han darted a narrow glance his way.

Cilghal took a deep breath and settled her shoulders. “What do you need from us?” she asked.

“You need to prepare for possible Imperial attack. And we need information on Revan,” Leia said briskly. “Whatever you have that might lead us to some kind of weakness or weapon we can use against this new emperor.”

Cilghal nodded. “Come with me,” she said, and she and Zekk led them inside.


	34. Chapter 34

**CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Coruscant did not appear to be a world in the midst of violent conquest--at least not if one looked solely at the planet itself. From a distance, the cluttered web of lights that defined the towering city that had spread and spread over the course of eons to now cover every inch of the world’s natural surface looked the same as ever. The glittering, artificial jewel that was Coruscant was too large a thing for something so small as an armed occupation to visibly affect--at least until one lifted one’s eye from the planet itself to the surrounding space lanes.

The cluster of Imperial ships hovering there made the current owners of the planet all too obvious.

Lando couldn’t help but shudder as he looked out the viewport of his borrowed freighter at the distant--but not-distant-enough--behemoth of the Super Star Destroyer that hung over the massive city-planet like a triangular guillotine. The ordinary Star Destroyers and smaller cruisers, shuttles, and snubfighters clustered around them seemed nearly inconsequential in comparison, almost comically small. The TIEs that swarmed continuously between the surface and their motherships above looked like petty insects, nothing more than a nuisance.

The TIEs that flanked the line of freighters awaiting clearance to land on Coruscant were another matter entirely. Far closer--and thus of far more immediate threat--than the big ships, there was nothing inconsequential about them as they flashed up and down the line of ships: an obvious deterrent towards anyone brave (or dim) enough to attempt to skirt Imperial authority and land on the planet without clearance.

Fortunately Lando was no such fool. As his comm crackled, he leaned back in his piloting chair and fixed a smooth, confident smile to his face. (The communication was voice-only so there was technically no need for the smile; the Imperial officer to whom he was speaking couldn’t see it, but that was no excuse for getting sloppy. A proper con man smiled when he was sweet-talking a mark, so Lando smiled.) 

“Your patience is appreciated, Captain Kadar. It appears that all of your documentation is in order.”

“Thank _ you_, Ensign Hewex,” Lando replied warmly. “I quite understand why the Empire would wish to be cautious about monitoring arrivals to Coruscant at this juncture, and I appreciate officers like you taking the time to do it properly. It’s been a delight to work with someone so professionally competent.”

He ignored the scandalized look that See Threepio turned on him from the copilot’s seat. (It forever astonished Lando how droids whose facial features were completely immobile were able to convey emotion in their static expressions, but there was no denying that many of them could and did. Well, let Threepio be scandalized; it was only because too long an exposure to blunt operators like Han left him lacking an appreciation for the finer arts of Lando’s craft.) If anything, it made Lando’s smile broaden in instinctive contrast.

“Oh, ah--thank you, captain.” Hewex sounded flustered. Lando doubted that most of the freighter pilots who had arrived here today expecting to deliver their routine shipments only to find an Imperial blockade waiting for them had been anywhere near so gracious to the low-ranking officers tasked with regulating the process. “Your, uh, your cooperation will be noted on your records.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lando replied smoothly. “I look forward to making many future shipments under your impeccable management.”

“Er, ah--thank you, captain,” Hewex stammered. “You are cleared for descent. Please, ah, please follow your escorts and do not deviate from your assigned flight path. And, uh, welcome back to Imperial Center.”

Lando bared his teeth in a wide grin and lied, “Good to be back, ensign.”

The comm clicked off and his smile fell from his face faster than a sabacc novice’s elation when meeting their first opposing Idiot’s Array. His comfortable lounging sprawl became a tired slump. When two TIE fighters took up positions on either sides of the freighter, rather than sitting up, Lando tiredly stretched a single arm out to nudge the throttle and begin his descent.

“Oh I say, Master Calrissian!” Threepio exclaimed, and Lando winced in anticipation--but the droid’s tinny voice, when he continued, was rich with praise rather than condemnation: “That was absolutely exquisite, the way you disarmed the suspicions of that Imperial goon with good manners and diplomatic charm!”

Lando glanced sideways at the protocol droid. His eyebrows raised curiously and his low spirits started to follow them. “Yeah?” he said.

Threepio nodded stiffly. “Truly, sir, it was a pleasure to watch you at work! Like witnessing a master artisan at the sculpting wheel or the easel!”

Lando couldn’t help it: he smiled and shifted forward to better grasp the controls, the weight of his exhaustion lifting. “It kind of was, wasn’t it?” he agreed proudly. He flipped the switch to begin warming the freighter’s aging repulsors. “You know,” he confided, shaking his head, “I really don’t know why Han doesn’t enjoy having you around more.”

“Oh sir,” Threepio said fervently, “I have wondered that myself for years.”

Now smiling in earnest, Lando shifted to take a steadier position at the controls of his borrowed freighter as it dropped sedately into Coruscant’s tiered city. When the pair of TIEs pacing him through the atmosphere turned back to escort the next ship in line, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh thank goodness, they’re going.” Threepio echoed his thoughts, golden head swiveling to track the departure of the Imperial ships. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, sir, but I find the sight of those ships most unpleasant.”

Lando chuckled. “You’re not alone there, that’s for sure. Especially not on Coruscant today, I’d wager.”

“Yes, I do think everyone would be much happier if the Empire would just go home. At least we won’t have to deal with them again now that we’ve made it past their blockade.”

“You kidding?” Lando lifted his eyes from the readouts in front of him to give the droid an incredulous look. “That was the easy part.”

“The easy part?” Threepio repeated, askance.

Lando nodded, turning his attention back to the tunnel of skyscrapers through which he was now dropping, their towering length casting the freighter’s descent into shadow.

“Yeah,” he said, his smile a wry combination of grim resignation and predatory anticipation. “This is where the fun begins.”

“Oh dear,” murmured Threepio.

The freighter continued its drop into darkness while overhead, pairs of TIEs screamed past in triumph.


	35. Chapter 35

**YAGA MINOR, 40 YEARS ABE:**

Yaga Minor was one of the crown jewels of the Imperial Remnant, a mineral-rich world that had been a major shipbuilding hub even before the fall of the Old Republic. Today, it was the only remaining real shipyard in the Imperial Remnant and while it was no Kuat Drive Yards, it was certainly capable of meeting the needs of the much-reduced Imperial Fleet.

There was no way it could have constructed an entire Super Star Destroyer on its own, however. Especially not in secret. Wherever Revan’s flagship had come from, it wasn’t Yaga Minor.

Which wasn’t to say that the world itself was poorly defended, either. Two _ Victory_-class Star Destroyers moved in opposing geosynchronous orbits with a Golan Defense Station looming between them. From a distance it was impossible to say whether the ships were fully functional or undergoing repairs. The airspace around the vessels swarmed with TIES, shuttles, and tugs--some on security patrols; others delivering supplies or personnel. The skeleton of one half-completed _ Turbulent_-class Star Destroyer lurked in the orbiting spacedocks alongside two older _ Imperial_-class Star Destroyers undergoing retrofits or repairs, all three vessels partially obscured by layers of scaffolding and maintenance pods.

It was a chilling sight even without remembering that Bastion, the throne world of the Imperial Remnant, was less than a time part away by average hyperspace speeds.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Finn asked. His voice was a hoarse whisper and his mouth was dry.

Even Stella’s seemingly-irrepressible confidence for once seemed daunted as the three of them peered out through the viewport at the bustling display of Imperial might.

“It’ll be fine,” Stella said just as the comm buzzed.

“Shuttle _ Crystilium_, transmit your clearance codes.”

Behind her, Finn mouthed, _ Crystilium? _in silent dismay at his stolen shuttle’s new name.

“Yaga Minor Control, this is Shuttle _ Crystilium_.” Stella’s voice was smooth despite the tension in her shoulders and the sudden tightness of her hands on the control yoke. “Please contact Master Designer Evo Wessex and inform her that Stella Novalon would like a meeting. Designer Wessex will provide our codes.”

“Shuttle _ Crystilium_, this is highly irregular--”

“So is keeping a Master Designer waiting.”

“Acknowledged. Hold position.” The communications officer sounded more angry than cowed by Stella’s haughty retort, as they confirmed a moment later when they added, “Attempts to move closer to the planet or spacedocks or patrol vessels without proper clearance will be viewed as a hostile action and appropriate responses will be engaged.”

“Acknowledged,” Stella said sweetly.

The comm clicked off.

“Stella Novalon?” Finn asked.

“I can’t exactly announce myself as a _ Calrissian _ on an Imperial world, can I?” Stella smirked. “Don’t worry, I have ident documents to match the name if I need them.”

“If they ask for our identification, we’re already in trouble,” Bail observed mildly.

Stella shrugged. “Don’t worry, they won’t.”

“Who’s this Designer Wessex?” Finn asked. He drummed nervous fingers on the armrest of his chair. He had stopped glancing anxiously at Bail in favor of glancing anxiously at the viewport at the distant TIEs and their Star Destroyer berths. “How do you know they’ll help?”

“She’s one of my moms,” Stella answered absently. She tapped a finger on the edge of a datascreen showing transponder information for the nearest ships.

“What?”

“One of Lando’s exes--he’s got a lot.” Bail grinned. “I didn’t know he’d ever dated an Imperial weapons designer though. Or did she defect when they broke up?”

“Ha ha,” Stella said drily, glancing over with an expression of wry amusement on her face. “And no. Your Uncle Luke’s the one who liked to mix defections and dating, not my dad.”

Bail laughed.

Finn shot him a curious frown, but before he could inquire further, the comm buzzed again.

“Shuttle _ Crystilium_, you are cleared to dock at Wessex Tower in Hanger Aurek-14. Follow the transponder code being transmitted to your ship now and do not deviate from the indicated flight-path.”

“Many thanks, Control,” Stella said, her voice fairly dripping with sugar. “Acknowledged.”

She thumbed the comm off and turned to grin at her companions. “See? Told you so. My moms always come through.”


End file.
